#structural equation models FROM HELL

[c-schroed]

That's a nice idea, thanks for sharing! Though I personally always felt that Structural Equation Models look even more like summoning circles. This one here, for instance:

I can clearly remember visiting some psychology conference, seeing a Powerpoint slide and thinking "Wait. Are we going to summon some demon now or what?"

Since then I learned a few things about these models. I now have my PhD, and I know quite well what these figures mean. But still. Part of me will alway think "Are we going to summon a demon, or what?"

So. Maybe math is quite close to magic, too?

i unironically believe electricity is the closest thing we have to magic in this universe. consider:

it's basically what human "souls" are made of (your consciousness is the result of miniscule amounts of electric charge jumping between neurons in your brain)

when handled incorrectly or encountered in the wild, it is a deadly force that can kill you in at least half a dozen different ways

when treated respectfully and channeled into the proper conduits, it is a power source that forms the backbone of modern society

if you engrave the right sigils into a rock and channel electricity into it, you can make the rock think

there is a dedicated caste of mages (electrical engineers) tasked with researching it in ivory towers

whatever the fuck Galvani was doing with those frog legs

look at this and just try to tell me it isn't a kind of summoning circle

[houroftheantichristwolf]

Lesbian Politicization

This was published 1990 in a book called Dykes-Loving-Dykes: Dyke Separatist Politics for Lesbians Only and illustrates exactly the long-standing issue with women appropriating lesbianism, using their political beliefs to try to define female homosexual existence in relation to opposing men. The agenda, of course, is to say fuck males and to fight the ever elusive and ever changing culture of patriarchy. 

That’s 100% relevant and helpful for actual homosexual females....not. 

I’ll make this short though, this is just to show how feminists been appropriating lesbians and applying their values to lesbian existence.

In the 1980’s, a decade of reactionary politics, femininity became an accepted value among many Lesbians. Even many politically radical Lesbians, who I would most expect to support Lesbian self-love and self-respect, who usually call male bullshit for what it is, began to openly admire feminine ways of dressing and acting. Femininity! A patriarchal hype if there ever was one.

Lesbians who didn’t look the way you personally think is more useful for your cause probably didn’t care to make a political statement out of their existence. The point of lesbians seeking lesbian communities is to find other lesbians - with the exception of those who WANTED to seek out political radical lesbian communities. That is not an inherent aspect of our existence, and to be honest, it’s not even a large part of it as women appropriating lesbians usually populated those communities. Here is a recap of the origins of radical “lesbian” separatism: *** [ In the late 70s a group of lesbians in Leeds, known as revolutionary feminists (RFs), made a controversial move that resonated loudly for me and many other women. They began calling for all feminists to embrace lesbianism. Appealing to their heterosexual sisters to get rid of men “from your beds and your heads”, they started a debate, which reached its height in 1981 with the publication of an infamous booklet, Love Your Enemy? The Debate Between Heterosexual Feminism and Political Lesbianism (LYE). In this, the RFs wrote that, “all feminists can and should be lesbians. Our definition of a political lesbian is a woman-identified woman who does not fuck men. It does not mean compulsory sexual activity with women. It’s no surprise that the booklet was so controversial. “We think serious feminists have no choice but to abandon heterosexuality,” it reads. “Only in the system of oppression that is male supremacy does the oppressor actually invade and colonise the interior of the body of the oppressed.” https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/jan/30/women-gayrights “Political lesbianism originated in the late 1960s among second wave radical feminists as a way to fight sexism and compulsory heterosexuality. Sheila Jeffreys helped to develop the concept when she co-wrote “Love Your Enemy? The Debate Between Heterosexual Feminism and Political Lesbianism”[3] with the Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group. They argued that women should abandon support of heterosexuality and stop sleeping with men, while encouraging women to rid men “from your beds and your heads.”[4] Heterosexual behavior is seen as the basic unit of the patriarchy’s political structure, lesbians who reject heterosexual behavior therefore disrupt the established political system.[5]Ti-Grace Atkinson, a radical feminist who helped to found the group The Feminists, is attributed with the phrase that embodies the movement: ‘Feminism is the theory; lesbianism is the practice.’[6]” ] ***

Lesbians’ acceptance of anything “feminine” is part of the weakening of Lesbian politics—a Lesbian parallel to the right-wing trend of het politics.

LOL good. Being a lesbian does not mean representing anything political. Also what the fuck? This is where queer activists got their penchant for calling lesbians Nazis lol. Where’s that meme that’s like, anyone I don’t like is a Nazi? lol great homophobia, Queen/dumbass.

Those Lesbians who act out the feminine model and claim it’s a contribution to Lesbian culture, a flowering forth of their “real selves,” are of course Fems

So feminine lesbians’ real selves aren’t acceptable within your framework because they trigger your contempt of gender presentation that you yourself do not have to take part of? But your “real self” - a non-lesbian pretending to be a lesbian - is commendable because you want other lesbians to act and look exactly how you do which supposedly is off-putting to patriarchy AKA you use our sexual orientation to say fuck you to men? I think not. 

The het media is full of stories about the het feminist who “realizes that she doesn’t have to give up being a woman to be a success in life,” who “regrets having tried to be like a man,” and is now “rediscovering the excitement of feminine seductiveness, the fun of dressing up in high heels, make-up and skirts, and her deep need for the joys of motherhood.”

“Realizes she doesn’t have to give up being a woman to be a success in life”; “and her deep need for the joys of motherhood.” So you understand femininity = heterosexuality. This is the 80s/90s, I wonder what her opinion is now that ‘femininity’ has changed: heterosexual women wear gym clothes, lift weights, have short hair, wear no make up or minimal make up etc., and men love it. And yet I see feminists also say that heterosexual women who are like this are still trying to please men and so are still feminine even though what they’re doing and how they’re looking is not “feminine” according to the original perception. So what’s the truth about ‘femininity?’ It’s equating it to anything that heterosexual men find appealing, which changes constantly. You really want lesbians to spend time to think about how to be as unappealing to males as possible when they’re not even relevant and so don’t dominate our every thought and action (unlike you maybe because you’re not homosexual and so have to try harder?)? Please, get real.

She’s a threat to the Big Lie of “feminine woman,” and so men and their women collaborators make up all kinds of ridiculous, hateful fictions to explain away her existence. The pressure is meant to humiliate and bully her into accepting femininity, and it must put her through soul-shaking self-doubt, even if she knows other Butches. 

While I do know this happens, the reason behind that is homophobia 100%, being “masculine” appearing is a red marker of homosexuality. The threat is the big lie of heterosexuality. “Feminine” lesbians were assaulted when with their partners or if found out that they are indeed homosexual, they were just less of an obvious target than “masculine” women. It’s not Oppression Olympics, this should be used to understand hate crimes against homosexual women.

Meanwhile, girls who accept femininity—the vast majority, unfortunately—are accepted as “real girls” and encouraged to take pride in their feminine ways. There are degrees of femininity, of course. Some Fem girls accept the complete emaciated drag queen sex-object ideal while others take on just enough feminine identity to still be accepted as real girls.

“Real girls.” I was definitely acknowledged as a “real girl” when I was still  more “unfeminine” in my appearance and not out than I am right now being out. What degree of ‘femininity’ am I considered to exhibit now according to feminist praxis, who knows. Either way, my relatives disagree that any amount of femininity would make me a ‘normal’ female. My mother was sad toward the end of her life because she felt conflicted that I wasn’t a ‘real’ female. You know what would’ve changed her perception? Being with a man and having kids.

It means spending time, energy and money on nail polish, perfume, hair-do’s, dresses, diets, body-shaping exercises, poses and games; fantasizing  yourself as the center of sexual attention, making everything into a sexual game, getting yourself further and further away from female reality, from real female Lesbian power. It means identifying more and more with het values and choosing to see yourself through men’s eyes.

I thought femininity was clothes, makeup and seeking to attract men. Then it’s wanting a family and diet and exercise, which aren’t exclusive to heterosexual men and women. But because heterosexual males find that appealing in their lives it’s considered feminine? So, again, “femininity” is anything heterosexual males find appealing in females. Got it. And that answers my question about what her thoughts probably are on contemporary “femininity.” 

Most importantly, choosing to be an obvious Lesbian is about living with integrity. A Butch’s choice to resist femininity is the choice of a female who’s being true to herself, choosing to be as alive to her female self as possible, regardless of the punishments inflicted on her as a result. I find in that resistance a key to Dyke power, Dyke beauty and Dyke love.

A lesbian being an actual lesbian - not pretending to be one or basing her existence on her capability to spite heterosexual males and females - and living her damn life is living in integrity period.  Associating a lesbian’s life with political intent and political values has no integrity, is manipulative and is suspect as hell.

[alovevigilante]

Mad. I’m mad today. I have this overwhelming feeling to throat punch my former self from 25 years ago and tell her to go and get a degree in psychology so I could have become a person that is more self aware faster, and maybe I could have gone down a different path in life. Instead, I’m mad at my past, and I’m mad at myself for making the ass choices I made to be a performer, and today I made my chocolate chip cookies with agave nectar instead of sugar, and gluten free flour. They turned out like cake cookies. I didn’t want cake. I wanted cookies. And I love sugar and white as hell flour. Yes. But no. I can’t have that, can I? Cause unhealthy and trying to be fit for what? I’m 46, and I shouldn’t give a shit, cause I’m not going to be on the cover of sports illustrated cause, A. Too old, B. Too short, C. Too much ass and stomach and thighs, and D. I’m not a model, I’m an unknown, and I couldn’t even be seen to audition for that shit. And E. My fach isn’t as symmetrical as those girls, cause I saw a BBC documentary that showed there’s an actual mathematical equation to what we as a human race considers beautiful and it has to do with a specific balance of the face in geometric form, that my fach doesn’t fit into! Surprise surprise! Why don’t they check the symmetry of my asshole?! Ok?! Cause the beauty IS in my brown eye that beholds my culo together. Ok?! Yeah! You know what?! I’m gonna find that shit and post it... this isn’t the documentary i saw, but John Cleese hosts this one, so there’s that. It’s on YouTube called, “Pythagoras, how to measure beauty...” and the last time I checked, the Pythagorean theorem isn’t that sexy, ok?! so eh meh feh, and F. For feh again, and G. No. And don’t even get me started about being a playboy model, ok? Cause cellulite and a fat flap over the Netherlands is never in style in that magazine, ok?! So instead of agave nectar and gluten free whatever, I should just expand myself length x width x depth wise cause wtf does it matter anyway when I stay in the house and hide from society cause I’m over it? Why, I ask you, whom ever the hell you are, Why?!

So what do you do, when you are mad at where you are now because in the past you made all kinds of choices that don’t match the you that you are today? And you feel isolated, because the you of today looks back and realizes that the people of your past that you thought were your friends, aren’t. I’ll tell you what you do! You come up with a plan for your future! And you buy a whole bunch of second hand clothes online that you like but you really don’t need, and doesn’t really make you feel better. And you get reminded by your husband in a kind way, that you can’t afford it cause you have no job. And then you look back at all the decisions you made in your past, and the cycle starts all over again.

Love, is nowhere to be found in the former situation. I’m lost. So, I will sit in this energy until I decide that I’ve had enough, and then I’ll choose something better hopefully. And after I do that, I will apologize to my former self cause she’s in here somewhere, for saying I’d like to throat punch her, because she was actually doing the best she could under her current circumstances she was experiencing at the time. And she wanted to act and sing, so we let her do it. And now, I don’t want to do that, but unfortunately that’s what I’m best at. And I’m mad about that.

So, I will eventually go on the treadmill or stretch a lot, and work out my anxiety about the lack of funds, and just be easier on me. I’ll keep you posted on the rest, cause this is where I’m at in my process today.

P.S. like my new gustav Klimt tank? Me too. I liked it for 11 minutes until I realized that I wasn’t able to afford all this ass shopping I’ve been doing... sigh. 🙈🤷‍♀️👍

P.P.S. I’m not bitter, or jealous of all the successful actors and singers and performers out there. They can keep their business of the show. I don’t ever want to cut your assholes in half so they regenerate Into 2 new assholes! No! 1. That’s nasty, and 2. That’s a lot of school I’d have to go through, too much biology, not to mention the fact that dr. Frankenstein’s theories were never realized to date. But if schrödinger's cat is alive in that box after all these years, someone should look into that, although even though it would be crazy if it were still alive, it still wouldn’t have the same biological structure as a worm, or, in our case “said asshole” regenerating itself like a worm into 2 separate but living entities, but it does deserve the research to at least see how and why it’s alive and can do that. But the asshole isn’t a living entity onto itself, because it needs the person to give it the energy to function. It doesn’t have a central nervous system, organs or a brain, but in some cases, they do, cause people embody them, so, you know, I’d at least need my masters to go into all that research, and who the hell has the money?

But listen, all that aside, I only want to write. I don’t even want to perform anymore. Although, I would also like to try my hand at working with (coaching) singers who are either having vocal issues, or stress their voices a lot, cause I’ve been experimenting with on myself to try to condition the body to relax under stressful circumstances with biofeedback while stressing the body under a controlled environment (a treadmill) using the Lisa saunderson technique of singing over the chords and not pushing through or straining the voice during performances. So, if there’s any takers on that technique, give me a ring. Otherwise, I just want to be able to find a career that I will be happy in, and also be able to support my family and my own ass like any other person wants too! Ok?! Ok!!!!

So instead of acting and singing, I’m just going to forget my health altogether and become the most successful pastry chef around and not share my pastry with anyone! And after that, I’m going to become a furniture tester, cause that’s a real job, and no one will have a better gauge on ass comfort, than me! Cause I sit home all day, mad, writing this shit! Ok?! Yeah! So there!

P.P. P..S. Yeah!

P.P.P.P.S. I just tried the cake cookies... not bad after all... 🙈🤷‍♀️🤣

[imaginationintowords]

Wanderlust Adventures

Chapter 10

Reader x Bucky!Travel Blogger; Social Media AU

Series Masterlist

[a/n: please pay attach to the first page break photo stop scrolling there and then read the text portion, otherwise the photos after the first page break will spoil the rest]

No POV

Bucky quickly pulls away from Carol, stunned at what just happened. He caught something move from the corner of his eye and glanced over to see Y/n standing there, completely stunned at what she just saw. Carol looks over, and notices Y/n there as well.

"Y/n this isn't what it looks like." Bucky quickly says, stepping away from Carol.

"Oops." was all Carol could saying, not really looking apologetic about the situation.

Y/n tries to walk away but Bucky grabs her by the elbow.

"Please. Please listen to me. This isn't what it looks like. You have to believe me." he pleads.

"Y/n. I'm so sorry you had to find out this way." Carol fakes an apology.

"What are you saying?" Bucky looks towards Carol, with wide eyes confused about what she is doing, "There isn't anything to find out about. Y/n please this isn't anything."

"I-" Y/n began.

"Y/n, I never wanted to hurt you. But you had to find out sooner or later." Carol comes from behind and loops her arm through Bucky's that was still holding y/n's arm.

"What the hell are you doing?" Bucky angrily says to Carol, detaching himself from her.

"No need to put up a front, Bucky. She caught us." Carol shrugs.

"No. I am not putting up a front. What the hell are you doing?" Bucky yells at her.

Y/n finds this opportunity to walk away.

"Y/n please. Please don't go. Listen to me." Bucky catches up to her in the hotel lobby.

"How could you? I-I came here to tell you the boys told me everything about Natasha. And to apologize for not listening to you and now you're here making out with my best friend. I am so fucking confused." Y/n says, completely lost.

"We were not making out. Please come into my room and let me explain everything. Please." He pleads with her, eyes welling up.

"You're just going to lie. They always do." She says.

"No. Y/n you have to believe me. I don't even like Carol. She came onto me. Telling me that you didn't like me."

"What?" Y/n cuts off Bucky.

"Yeah. She said that I was just some fling. That you have some guy waiting for you back home." Bucky tells her.

"That's not true." she says even more confused about everything.

Why would Carol say something like that, she thought.

"I KNOW that. I could tell she was lying because she just kept saying bad things about you that just didn't add up to what you told me back in Greece. And then you texted me wanting to talk and I knew that something was just off. But you got to believe me Y/n, I'm not like this. I would never do that to you or to anyone. I've been through it, I'm sure the boys told you that. Please. Please you have to believe me."

"I'm so confused. Carol is my best friend. Why would she do all of this?" Y/n questions.

"I don't know. I do know that Carol has had a bit of a crush on me. When we used to work together she always tried to get me to go out with her but I was with Natasha at the time and I kept telling her I wasn't interested. I'm still not interested." He tells y/n.

"I-I need to go. I need to talk to Val. I'm just so confused." She sadly says.

"Please Y/n. You have to believe me. I know we don't know each other for that long and you have no reason to believe me, but you have to." He pleads once again.

"I need to go." Y/n says, still standing in the spot, not moving. Unsure of what she should really do. Part of her was hoping Carol could just come down and tell her that Bucky is lying and that she should just believe her.

"Let me go with you. Please. If I were lying to you, wouldn't Carol be here right now trying to convince you of that. But she isn't and I am. Stressing to you that you have to believe me."

"Okay." she agrees, "You can come with me."

Y/n was so confused and heartbroken at the same time. Because if Bucky is lying then he really is like the rest. But if he isn't, why would Carol do something like this. They've been friends since they were 14 years old. None of this makes sense, and the only one who could make sense of it all would be Valkyrie.

They walked in silence to her hotel.

Once they got there, Val was fuming. More than Y/n has ever seen.

"I can't believe she fucking did this. Again." Valkyrie fumed, pacing around the room while Bucky and Y/n watched.

"What do you mean again?" Y/n asked, confused.

Valkyrie paused. Realizing what she just said. She did plan on telling Y/n what happened now that Carol has done it again. But not when she's filled with anger.

Valkyrie takes a deep breath and looks over at Y/n with sad eyes. She knew she had to tell her, everything, she was just afraid of how Y/n will react. She's kept this from her for a year. She deserves whatever reacting Y/n gives her.

"Can I preference by saying how truly sorry I am for never telling you this. I just truly believed her when she told me that she would never do something like this again." she starts.

"What are you talking about?" Y/n says, with an uneasy feeling in her stomach.

"Last year, remember how Carol just sort of dropped off our radar?"

"Yeah. But that was because she was so busy with work." Y/n says.

"No. That's not the real reason. Carol did some very bad things, that had an affect on your life, and I had caught her and made her promise to stay away." Valkyrie says, trying to figure out a way to explain to Y/n what happened.

Bucky remained in the back by the door, trying to give the girls some type of privacy, but also knowing he needed to be here, for Y/n.

"Valkyrie. What did Carol do? Just fucking tell me. Stop walking around me like I'm going to break any fucking second. Just tell me!" Y/n says, getting frustrated with the way Valkyrie is walking around the matter.

"Remember that job opportunity you had last year? With Vanity Fair. To work full time as a writer for their travel column." Valkyrie says.

"Yes. I didn't get it for whatever known reason. Even though my agent said they were practically begging to get me on their team."

"You didn't get it because, Carol told them that you didn't really write your own pieces. That you had a ghost writer, and that you had your parents buy your followers. She lied to them so you wouldn't get the job." Valkyrie explains.

"What? Why would she do that? How do you even know that?" Y/n asks, feeling like a bomb was just dropped on her, which figuratively it was.

"One of the writers that I was doing freelance work for told me. First he asked how I could be friends with someone who was lying to everyone, and when I was confused he told me everything. I told him that that wasn't true. That I know for a fact that you would never do that. But by then it was too late because they already hired someone else. When I asked who told him that, he told me one of their models did, Carol Danvers." Valkyrie continues.

"Then when I went to go confront Carol about it, that's when I saw..." Valkyrie pauses, scared to tell Y/n what came next. Knowing that this is the cover up that's going to change the structure of their whole friendship.

"Spit it out Valkyrie." Y/n demanded.

"I'm scared to tell you what I saw, because you're going to hate me. I would hate me. I hid this from you for a fucking year. So before I tell you this, just know that I only did what I thought was best at the time. I thought I was protecting you, I knew I should've just told you the truth, would've saved all of us," she tearfully says, waving her hand around the room to include Bucky in the equation, "the trouble of what's going on now. But I didn't and I've had to live with the guilt of it all for the past year. And that's on me. If our friendship ends, that's on me."

"Valkyrie, that's not going to happen." Y/n softly says, trying to reassure her friend.

Y/n has only ever seen Valkyrie this emotional when she called off her engagement to Thor.

"Don't say that. Not until you hear the rest." She says.

"Okay. When you're ready." She assures her, grabbing her hands to hold.

Valkyrie takes one final deep breath, to calm her nerves.

"When I went to confront Carol at her place, that's when I saw her kissing Peter outside of her door." Valkyrie hesitantly says, looking right into Y/n's eyes.

Y/n instantly drops Valkyrie's hands.

"I kno-"

"You saw Peter, Peter Parker, my ex, who wasn't my ex at the time kissing Carol." Y/n cuts her off, in complete shock over what she was hearing.

"Yes." Valkyrie nods.

"Was Carol the one he was cheating on me with?" Y/n asks, with a slight broken tone to her voice.

"Yes. She admitted to me after I had caught her, that she and Peter were having an affair for awhile." Valkyrie admits.

"And you never told me?" Y/n asks, trying to piece it all together. It was a lot of information, life changing information.

"I am so sorry, Y/n. I should have-"

"But you didn't." Y/n sharply cuts her off.

"I didn't." Valkyrie agrees.

"And you should have." Y/n says, her eyes filling up with tears.

The betrayal she feels right now is unmatched to any feeling she's ever felt.

"And I should have."

"Why didn't you?" Y/n says, she's trying to keep her emotions at bay. Trying to understand why Valkyrie didn't tell her.

"Because Carol begged me not to. She said she was going to end it all. And that she had no idea why she lied to Vanity Fair and why she was having an affair with Peter. She broke down crying saying how guilty she felt. I believed her. I had never seen her so upset."

"She promised that she would never do it again. That's when I made the choice to not tell you, but to tell Carol that she needed to give us space. That she needed to take some time to figure out who she wanted to be. I thought I was doing the right thing. We had all been friends for so long, that I just thought I was doing what was best for us all, to try and save what was left of our more than a decade long friendship." Valkyrie says, explaining.

"But that decision didn't affect you, Val. That affected me. You knew this whole time. When Peter confessed. When Carol said she had to take a step back to figure out her own life. You knew the truth, as you comforted me. As I cried over Peter, because I thought I was going to marry him." Y/n's voice starts to get louder.

"I know. And I am so fucking sorry. I wish I could go back and change it. And tell you everything, then maybe we all wouldn't be in this position. Then maybe you and Bucky didn't have to worry about Carol sabotaging your relationship. Then maybe I wouldn't have felt so fucking guilty about lying to you, and I would still be with Thor."

"Don't. Don't put you breaking up with Thor on me. That was all you. I even told you to take a week to think it over. Even after the fact I kept telling you to talk to him." Y/n cuts her off, getting more angrier by the second.

"I'm not putting it on you. It's all on me. My ended engagement is on me. Carol sabotaging what you and Bucky have, that's on me. All the lies, that's all on me. Our friendships ending, that's all on me. Because I thought I was doing what was best." Valkyrie owns up, with tears streaming down her face.

Y/n stands there staring at Valkyrie, tears also streaming down her own face.

After a few moments of silence, Bucky hesitantly softly places his arm on Y/n's shoulder. For a second there she forgot he was still in the room. She glanced over to look at him.

"I need you to leave." she says looking at him.

"Okay." he agrees, dropping his hand and turning away.

"Not you." Y/n stops him, he stops and looks back at her.

"Valkyrie."

Valkyrie's head snaps and eyes wide.

"I need you to leave, Valkyrie. I need some time to process all of this." Y/n sternly says, but her voice crack gives her away.

"Okay. Take all the time you need." Valkyrie sadly says, bowing her head as she leaves Bucky and Y/n alone.

"Are you okay?" Bucky asks her, touching her shoulder again.

"I don't even know." She confesses breaking down into his chest.

He wraps his arms around her securely, rubbing her back, silently letting her know he's there.

[Social Media AU]: Y/n is a popular travel blogger, and a freelance travel writer for a magazine. She travels the world with her two best friends, Valkyrie who is a freelance graphic designer that the reader “drags” out of bed to see the world, and Carol who’s a new up and coming model. This is the first time in a year all three girls are traveling together due to Carol’s new busy career. A month long European excursion, that might end up being their last trip together due to their lives taking them elsewhere. Bucky Barnes used to be a model but now travels the world with his best friends. He has a hard time commiting to one thing, which is why he loves to travel so much. He travels the world with his two best friends, Steve who runs a gym in Brooklyn and Sam, who works for a popular food magazine where he gets to travel and eat all the food he wants. Bucky has once again convinced his childhood best friends to join him on a month long trip to escape the trapped feeling of being back in New York. Steve and Sam are worried about Bucky and his constant need to runaway from his issues, they’re hoping this trip will be an eye opener for their friend. Inspired by: @geosaurusrrex osaurusrrex’s social media AUs.

To support my ko-fi

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[wisdomrays]

TAFAKKUR: Part 255

DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE SMALL THINGS

Who does not want to know the future? Is it not one of our impossible dreams to obtain advance information about tomorrow? Events developing in time have such a complicated structure that small things can make all the difference. For example, a small mutation in one (or couple of) gene(s) leads to cancer, which can be a devastating disease. Today, we cannot make long-term predictions; we do not know when the next earthquake is going to take place or how stock market prices will continue to rise and fall. Life is full of these unknown and unpredictable events.

In modeling atmospheric convection in the 1960s, a meteorologist and mathematician at MIT, Edward Lorenz, came up with a mathematical model showing that small perturbations in input parameters result in huge deviations in output, the “butterfly effect.” In other words, in theory, a butterfly flapping its wings in China could bring about a storm in New York City. This is another way to express sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Getting up two minutes late, one may end up missing the bus, which in turn costs one the job interview. As a result of pushing the brake pedal one second earlier a person’s life can be saved. Such slight changes in daily actions are actually signs of how tiny changes are relevant with our lives and how sensitive the future is to the present. Such dependence is called nonlinearity and many scientific problems, such as the well-known Navier-Stokes equations, have been awaiting a solution because of this complexity. In contrast to a deterministic approach, which is based on the idea that the knowledge of the past enables one to make future prediction, a nonlinear (or chaotic) approach claims that the future is not that straightforward.

In contrast to what we used to believe, chaos does not mean complete disorder. Some complicated long-term events may have a hidden order. Being bound by time prevents us from knowing the future. It is in this sense, that time can be said to be another dimension, so that together with the other three, our living environment is formed. To be able to control or observe time-dependent events, the individual of this four-dimensional space may need to move outside of time. To understand this idea better we may analyze the well-known butterfly example. the behaviors of three different variables are very irregular, complicated and chaotic. However, when the same motions are transformed into another space where time is hidden, what we see is an interesting order between these three variables.

Chaos and spiritual life

The human being’s spiritual life is also sensitive to small changes. We are continuously exposed to our personal desires and Satan’s whispers. One small sin is an invitation to worse ones which eventually accumulate and trouble the soul. Similarly, every good deed, no matter how small, has the potential to become a ticket to paradise. It just depends upon the situation in which it was performed and the level of sincerity in our heart. Giving water to a thirsty dog is not an extraordinary act, but in the particular case mentioned in a tradition of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, this sincere act was significant enough to purify a very sinful person, while another went to hell because of letting a cat starve. In another tradition, the Prophet says, “When a person first commits a sin, it falls as a black dot in (the clean slate of) his heart; if he refrains, repents, and seeks forgiveness, it is however erased; if, on the other hand, he were to persist in sin, the dot will gradually expand until it covers the entire heart.” The Prophet then explained, “This is the state of sealing the hearts that God warned (us) of in the Qur’an: Nay the sins they have accumulated have covered their hearts like a seal” (Mutaffifin 83:14). Likewise, in his Risale-i Nur collection Nursi says, “Sin, penetrating the heart, will blacken and darken it until it extinguishes the light of belief. Within each sin is a path leading to unbelief. Unless that sin is swiftly obliterated by seeking God’s pardon, it will grow from a worm into a snake that bites the heart.”1 Likewise, initial tiny scruples can grow exponentially and destroy hope in the heart in an unexpected way. Nursi explains this in the following way:

O you afflicted with involuntary evil thoughts and fancies, such things resemble a misfortune. The more you dwell on them, the more they grow. If you ignore them, they dwindle away; if you exaggerate them, they swell; if you belittle them, they die down. If you fear them, they become grave and make you ill; if you do not fear them, they become slight and remain hidden. If you do not know their real nature, they persist and become established; if you recognize their nature, they disappear.

. . .

Satan first casts a doubt into the heart. If the heart does not admit it, he offers a blasphemy and causes the mind to recall some unclean memories and pictures, some ugly scenes that resemble blasphemy. This causes the heart to despair. People experiencing such thoughts think that they are acting wrongfully toward their Lord and so feel great agitation and anxiety. To free themselves, they flee from the Divine Presence and want to plunge into heedlessness and forgetfulness.

From the human being’s perspective, each time-dependent event can have very complicated consequences but it always bears God’s signature and His divine order. He is the only One Who knows the future, as stated in the verse: “They said, 'Why hasn't a miracle come down to him from his Lord?’ Say, ‘Only God knows the future.’ Therefore, wait, and I will wait along with you” (Yunus 10:20). It may not be possible to see tomorrow, but we should be aware that each small change we make affects our future. Many scholars lived in such a way that they were always carefully watching their hearts to take immediate action on small deeds or scruples. For every event or option we face, the decision is up to us to, like whether we smoke or not, whether we lie or not, whether we get up early or not and so on. These sets of small decisions play a role in terms of the future we do not know. Although they are small, they have such a big impact and should not be underestimated. Even reading this article was one of these small things you had the choice to do or not to do!

[deathghost8]

Harm reduction script essay compiled

1- “TLDR” (I wrote the book that will save the world)

2- ancap math 101 : Purchasers and fulfillers

3- #MATH politics : Harm reduction education platform overview

1 Innovation: Viable Tech in a social organism)

(I wrote the book on saving this social organism, it is 3 pages long.)

Pages 1️⃣2️⃣3️⃣

1️⃣ • Social order is a circle. []

our agreement of what is valued is : that which flows back into the organism, if it does not, we cannot place value on it -

Look, What goes out is our waste: Poop. 💩What flows in and circulates is our life blood. ⭕️

any attempted systematized defiance of the circle constitutes a tumor or a heart attack. Some type of unholy disease which kills the organism. In today’s tech feudalism that’s called Net Worth, or influencers. 🤑

Technologically civilized would mean that the emergent wealth of the organism flows from the top end of total aggregate productivity (value generated) back to the beginning in an automatic credit type of way, such that no individual beneficiary is raised above others, and no individual sponsor or authority point is held responsible or given control of this flow. This would be the invention of decentralized money, the Viable Tech connecting all other viable tech to all beneficiaries, effectively employing the meaning of innovation to reduce or totally eliminate labor/overhead / cost to human wellbeing and the enjoyment of wealth produced by the organism as a whole.

2️⃣ • Ya cannot govern by Ruling, ya Dingus!! []

Automating the purchase of the basic minimum in food and wellbeing commerce on behalf of the entire population is the means by which tech feudalism converts into technologically civilized, because the only authority that doesn’t kill the organism is that of the combined emergence of the V O L U N T A R Y spending decisions of all the sovereign individuals.

(For yer health!!)

~Purchase on behalf of~

Is the bridge tech to the full decentralization system, because you need to retain the aspect of voluntary purchasing by individuals, who then select and continue to sustain the winners in the innovation contest whose offering is widely adopted because it’s the most optimal and wins at reducing cost and overhead.

Thus, we see that it is pure ancap : a means of total divorce from the harmful entanglement of authority and status attainment institutions like government and corporation - a simple payment to every citizen to purchase their wellbeing voluntarily, sponsoring the winners in that contest via the auto refilling minimum income credit app (like bill pulte sending everyone 1337$ every month on their cash app).

3️⃣ •We held these truths to be self evident - The income floor is like tokens to vote via purchase, but simultaneously a gesture of wellbeing toward all those who have been harmed by state tyranny, domestic violence , corporate rigging (monopsony, gouging, monopoly, theft, etc) or any kind of oppression - Of course, As any good democracy Which eliminates poverty and guarantees life liberty and the pursuit of happiness should do.

The actions of a truly free populace will then fund whatever else can or should exist in such a free society, because healthy humans who aren’t exhausted , depleted , and diseased are creative and industrious. Here you have a next generation society that invents itself. It starts with the decentralization of money so that democracy begins to flow in the commerce itself.

22 - technological civility

🔄 Inclusion pricing / inclusion model -

Let me mathematically discuss The next human innovation equation

First of all, social order definitions.

We are calculating social order where we have eliminated boss tyranny and installed voluntary transacting as the basic motion.

(The lack of doing so is how economy runs now, full of tyranny and abuse, and distraction politics with illusory division. )

Doing so will Philanthropize value between

Purchaser & Fulfiller.

- the worker and the beneficiary of work both need to capture most, ( ifnot 100% ) of the value within that TRANSACTION

Fulfillers provides any needed function or item to the social organism.

Purchasers are the VOTE PLACERS.

|| Anything that harms or suppresses the social organism can not qualify under the fulfiller. It has to be actual value.

This is democracy of nature - the organism’s emergent intelligence describes:

✨ what is positively valued:

* either vital or desired,

* Or just an optional luxury

💩 What is value minus:

* either simply inefficient (ie obsolete or archaic)

* OR worthless, harmful, or toxic

Inclusion model is the basic exertion of educational value - the human GAin of wellness and growth, taking place of itself, voluntary.

(Educational value is what is expressed by the basic principle about zen:

calm wellbeing in the present now, uninfringed by illusion or coercion.)

Instead of not allowing non paying users to come in, you use advertising and other mechanisms which sponsor them, to avoid excluding.

That is what the Viable Tech of decentralized money can and will do. Enable the democracy of nature by the principle of wu wei.

↘️⭕️↘️ Meta conclusion / sharp rectangle punchline

-

the wealthy innovators or influencers that currently hold Potential energy are responsible for continuously accumulating opportunity cost - if they were to view the emergent intelligence of the social organism somehow, with leader vision, they would circulate the **necessary amount** to fund work at the the bottom, by sponsoring purchasers to create the work for fulfillers.

Emergence is the technological democracy replacement for a representative system that was made obsolete when communication faster than the horse carried letter - instant electronic messaging - came forth.

333

[][][] So Then,

Now [][][]

(Interlude - there is another joker - sets up the monastery value)

() The monastery idea flows into and within the harm reduction platform and is a necessary piece of monk education as a structure of my mind, my deepest heart.

Monastery is Harm Reduction because if money were no object I would open them everywhere and hire other monks to run it with me

() the real purpose is to offer a place that is not tied down by commercial / profitability burden, nor public funding approval.

There was a time that Kanye tried to start a shoes gifting program, but what he should have done was open monasteries, the maximum adequacy 3rd place.

I want to create the space for Leaving this social contract as the main function of my business. 🚪🃏 My business is people’s wellbeing.

👁‍🗨The joker sees through all pairs of eyes - but there is another joker. The warrior

[image transition here:

there is another joker

🚪👁‍🗨🃏

the warrior is the joker

The joker is the tank

The tank is the monk

The monk is at the top

Battling

[image transition back]

He battles every boss, taking Aggro and defending the young and the vulnerable, leading the group, so that the newer ones may learn and get xp

And this monastery is the warrior’s house of gathering.

The base.

What school actually means. The warrior’s house.

STANLEY [the LOVE SAMURAI]

lives there.

In regular reality the Love samurai is a joke in the Raphael level

Of Stanley parable.

In my game, the love samurai is the joker. He is me.

Education monk.

Monastery is the warrior’s house, the place where no nazi infringement is allowed to take away our wellbeing or our free will.

Harm reduction is critical, vital, and sharply precise with intent.

It is abstract, but unambiguous comprised of a few separate but inseparable policy values.

first understand the Nucleus values :

* wellbeing / healing

&

* curiosity / sovereignty

1️⃣ Decriminalization - remove policing against medicinal and educational action / tools. This item resonates by the recent cultural movements to decriminalize federal cannabis and psychedelics, (plus all types of sex work and human interaction for the purpose of wellbeing) and most recently the public outcry to defund policing.

This item is an essential modification to the social contract. We need to be allowed to grow up, and make decisions; with no one standing over the shoulder saying we are wrong. That cannot be tolerated anymore. It’s just too much. It’s too violent. It’s too oppressive. We’re done with it.

2️⃣ decentralization. FUND wellbeing directly

To children and their guardians as valued individually-owned Work. This is an income floor policy. Its true meaning is that there can be no outside boss who could fire you or in any other way withhold the funding.

Because- they aren’t the stake holder. You are, on behalf - your kids are.

We will have decentralized this by letting it be funded at the very bottom of social order, at the purchase level, recognizing that the best purchase will always be made by the individual.

With democracy, That is the liberty we believe in. It’s time we started acting like it.

3️⃣ infrastructural - 3rd places that kids may be kids and Peace is the purpose. All are invited. It is not for sale. Very very simple, common sense for the type of spaces we want to have in a CIVILIZED social order.

I’m Not saying don’t have a public building that is the school. I’m saying don’t have it be an authoritarian Hell , a part time jail with bosses and grading, and de-individualization.

So To have it at all, you need to make it both voluntary and useful. So that children and families may use the resources in support of their kids’ curiosity.

Real TLDR distilled conclusion:

My task as monk educator:

UNPLUG us

from Use of Force Matrix

which demands we emulate coercion

And then PLUG us back In Again

But into the Celebration and Sharing Matrix this time.

Disconnection is the illness -

- Use of Force is the illness

Contact is the medicine []

[] Sharing is the medicine

⭕️

How to contact ?

Celebration

How to Share?

Crafting

🔛

👁‍🗨

Wellbeing (means of doing: healing)

Sovereignty (means of doing: curiosity / question pathing [quests] )

[genidma]

The conscious experience

Am I conscious? And if I am conscious, then how do I prove that I am conscious, by making use of the conscious experience itself? 

That’s actually a very interesting conversation. It’s certainly not an original thought. 

The way I think about thinking, this sort of logic flows from the same set of schema, that governs my thinking regarding life. 

And so, if I may begin by first articulating, what I personally don’t consider to be true. In fact, I think that the below mentioned have a high degree of being classified as the opposite of true. And I’d attach a higher than 80% probability to such claims. 

There is no super deity: In a probabilistic sense, there may very well be intelligences out there that could be classified as vastly superior, compared to the level of intelligence that we exhibit (in our existing evolutionary state). I say this, considering the enormity of the universe and the possibility that there may be many multi-verses and a lot of dimensions out there. But the conscious experience, it appears, is born out of a number of different processes that can be categorized as non-conscious. So, it just doesn’t make rational sense as to why a super deity would want to micro manage the affairs and as it relates to an enormous amount of conscious agents out there.  That being said, it’s interesting to think about the spectrum and how intelligences of varying types and scales could potentially co-exist on similar/the same planar. And on the other end of the spectrum, we are dealing with the very low end of the probability that humans are the only intelligent beings in the entire universe. If that statement ought to be considered as true, then that increases the probability that we are either living in a simulation, or that all other intelligent beings have left this universe. Or that advanced beings either live in the cauchy horizon or that their patterns are retained there. Or some other reason that could reasonably explain this oddity. Overall, it’s an interesting question and with respect to what came before the big bang. Or why something even has to be there before the big bang occurred. I think that these are both logical questions. I’d even go as to state, that if there was indeed a God like intelligence, then it certainly does not intervene and as it relates to the day to day affairs of intelligent beings, or non-intelligent beings at that. That super-intelligence is either doing it’s own thing, in it’s own corner, somewhere in the multi-verse or it ended up annihilating itself. So, that is my current stance on this sub-topic. That there is no super-intelligence in an interventionist sense.

And so, there are no angels, demons. There is no concept of heaven or hell. 

There is no soul. At least there is no evidence that such a thing exists. 

And so, there is no consciousness. In either the esoteric sense that it is characterized in a variety of different ways. Intertwined with the fabric of space-time. Allegedly flowing in and out of microtubules. 

If there is no consciousness, then what is it that we experience? We experience something. Even though what we experience could be classified as a series of hallucinations brought about by the signals flowing through our brains. 

Over the course of the human evolution, we have devised mechanisms that help us towards understanding our reality and our place within this reality. Maybe there are better mechanisms out there that we have yet to invent. 

And so, in order to be able to define the conscious experience, we need to be grounded in truth and there has to be evidence that certain phenomenon drive certain outcomes. 

Next, I think it’s better to classify what we experience as cognition. Cognition is driven by electrical and chemical activity in our brains and the mental aspect (related to the mind) is largely fashioned by our interaction with our wider environment. 

Going back to the question that I started with and given the background that I have shared, cognition, it appears, is simply an interesting mixture of pattern recognizing functions. 

I think that we can use simple examples in order to be able to separate the signal from the noise. Meaning, that:

We need need a discussion and as it relates to what certain words really mean or the meaning we attach to these words. 

And this is important because we want to use mechanisms in order to replicate or seek to replicate how we think cognition functions. When it turns out that the processes we engineer may end up working differently, compared to how evolution has powered cognition. 

Also, I think that using simpler examples is a better approach, as doing so helps in refining our understanding, with respect to the models that we will architect. 

For example, Michio Kaku’s definition that a thermometer has a cognition (he calls it consciousness) of 1 (or 2, or +/- x e.t.c depending on how you look at it). Meaning, in response to the stimuli that the system gets from it’s environment, it either goes up or it goes down. 

How we classify the scale from a thermometer to viruses/bacteria, to potato bugs, to chickens, to other animals and finally to ourselves. That is a conversation by itself. I think that, that is primarily a question of ethics. Care is to be meted and we shouldn’t let our unconscious urges and desires lead us towards categorizing the conscious experience as something that is convenient for us. And then, this classification turns it into something that could be very uncomfortable for the village idiot. 

As it is, our classification of cognition isn’t something that is to the advantage of chickens and other animals that we have domesticated. Note: I’ve started eating chicken again and I feel a slight tinge of guilt when I bite into the flesh. But, then, in my mind, I start equating chickens to dinosaurs and somehow I am able to justify my behaviour. But, I haven’t had red meat in a while. 

For the record, if I was raising my own chickens, then I could probably condition myself to slaughter them in a humane and ethical way and then cook and eat them. But, if it happens that we encounter some slightly advanced alien species, that kind of look like a more evolved progenitor of the avian sub-species that we find on this planet. Then, my mind is going to start thinking how these advanced beings would perceive me, when they see me biting into flesh that looks like something that emerged from these alien types. 

Considering the panspermia theory, that hypothesis isn’t really as wild or improbable. As improbable as it may seem, these questions would certainly start emerging in my mind, if I were to encounter a technologically advanced blue avian. In such a scenario and just to be on the side of caution, I think I’d probably stop eating birds at that point in time. Because, you do not want to unintentionally piss off your technologically advanced inter-stellar neighbours.

Overall, these problems disappear or start disappearing, as soon as cellular agriculture starts going more mainstream.

Next, I certainly don’t think embryos are alive and have a soul in them. There is neuronal activity in there. Off-course there is. Because nutrients have to be delivered to the different parts of the system. If you are going to pinch the embryo with a needle, then there is going to be an instinctive reaction that has been programmed via evolution. Knee-jerk reaction. An embryo is not alive.

I must state that the reason why I am sharing some of these thoughts is because I really hope that as humans we should use our cognitive surplus, in order to be able to learn more about how our brains function. 

Also, I don’t say, or think out loud what I am sharing, with the explicit purpose of offending someone. Although, I really do not think that society ought to be structured in such a way that me saying something offends someone and that is not allowed. That’s a big problem.

Specially, with me (or anyone else at that) saying something is not inciting violence in any shape or form. An embryo is not a person and it’s not conscious. I mean, I eat eggs everyday. 

Now, I have started thinking about how painful this must be for the chickens to lay billions of eggs each day. As well, the male hen, whose sperm is being used to fertilize these hens in the first place. So there are all of these thoughts. But, for now, I am still eating eggs, chicken and fish and not so much of red meat.  

I guess, overall,  problems emerge, because there are memes engrained in cultural settings. And there is group identify. And it’s easier to go along with the group vs forcing oneself to think independent thoughts. So if the the majority of the group believes that am embryo is conscious, then it’s not so easy going against that way of thinking. Unless, one chooses not to associate with that group, which isn’t necessarily an easy thing to do. 

Coming back to breakthroughs in neuroscience. This is an area that could radically alter how we live, how we govern, and key breakthroughs could also help reduce so much human suffering on this planet. 

Imagine being able to treat mental illnesses the way we treat ailments physiological of a nature. Same with addictions of different sort. 

Imagine being able to truly understand someone else, when they allow you to share their emotions/sensations and their way of looking at the world with you. Even though that may occur for a short period of time. 

Imagine, humans choosing to put down their weapons and deciding instead that they are going to invest towards enabling healthcare in their communities. And that all humans could make that decision at the same time. Because, we would finally have the means and the ability to be able to decode how the brain and the mind actually function. 

There is a super long list of benefits that I can think of. I love thinking about thinking and all the amazing benefits that could be had. Two of my personal favourites include:

The ability to be able to encode knowledge in logic, so that it can be transmitted instantaneously from one system to another. 

As well, if technological singularities are still lingering around in our universe (for any given reason), then the means and the abilities to be able to build the right kind of architecture, so that we can begin interacting with them (the singularities, technological singularities). Although, I would suspect that the singularities have an outer un-conscious shell which is intelligent and yet it is non-conscious. Then they have this inner dynamic that is vibrant and diverse and wholesome.  Because if the universe is teeming with intelligences with different sort, then technological singularities must have devised some kind of mechanism in order to be able to retain and exercise their uniqueness. The alternative, increases the probability that the whole thing enables harmful mutations across these technological singularities. Like cousin marriages or the whole thing turning into a giant b0rg. And so, if everyone is thinking the same way in the b0rg, then is the b0rg really thinking? Is the borg really that much more conscious than slime mould? 

Overall, I am still not 100% sure if I am conscious or not. I think I am more conscious on some days vs others. My experiences lead me to believe (a loaded word) that memories and how they are encoded, that this process plays a pivotal role and as it relates booting up our schema. 

I believe that I am a good person and I am willing delay gratification in order to do the thing that is honest and ethical. This is a criteria (for lack of a better word that I can think of right now), that has led me to think about how I consume materials and information. Nobody is perfect. But I strive to do better. And I do make progress, because I measure most aspects of my life. 

If our conscious experience has booted up, using principles and mechanisms that can be categorized as ethical and moral in a secular/universal sense. Then, in light of such a reality, our conscious experience is our property. 

Now and increasingly into the future, we need to have agreements in place, with respect to who can access who’s property. Citing a clause that reality is far too complex for any one cognitive system to understand and then trampling over individual conscious experiences, is obviously not a good model. 

I think it makes sense to go down to the absolute basics. Meaning, distill/boil down a narrative to the core fundamentals and build up the narrative in a logical and structured way. Because, you can then build up on these models in a way that is sustainable and replicable. The alternatives do not really offer safety/security/insurance/scalability. 

So when we think about thinking, we can say that this is what we know. And here is the evidence. So let’s build on top of this, in order to help reduce unwanted and undesirable human and non-human suffering. 

[eightlivs]

17 April 2019

Oh boy, have we gotten some BIG news. I’m assuming everyone’s heard about the BLACK HOLE PICTURE.

But now, collider updates, because I’ll get yelled at if I don’t write something about it.

We’ve got most of the left-side halo magnets off the power grid. We had a bit of an issue with a few of the stabilizer cylinders not sliding back because the tracks were bent (they’re all supposed to slide back into the building structure to give us access to the main magnets, plus the cone where the particles accelerate are halfway underneath them - see hasty diagram here), so we had to manually move two of them (well, I moved one of them, and the crane crew I mentioned last time decided they’d go ahead and move the other before I could fucking get to it). Anyway, after that unexpected quench back in February, we’ve had to be a lot more careful in case one of them accidentally quenches again and/or the cryogenic helium gets vented inappropriately, since that shit’s a breathing hazard.

Anyway, FUCKING BLACK HOLES! Humans have got a PICTURE of a BLACK HOLE now, folks, and first data analyses show that so far, the equations, the theories of relativity, the current simulated models of black holes… They’re RIGHT.

“But wait, Liv, it’s a BLACK HOLE! It sucks in even light, you can’t take a picture of it!”

WRONG, you can still get a picture of the weird and wacky shit that it affects around it! And when you look at it…

HUMANS. WERE. FUCKING. RIGHT.

Do you even KNOW do you even have ANY CLUE WHATSOEVER how many scientific theories, postulates, ideas, concepts, tenets this validates? We have visual confirmation that yes, this is how the universe WORKS.

Black holes and gravity are still kind of “?????” bits of science, especially the whole macro/quantum divide. We still don’t have a good quantum theory of gravity that works, which is INFURIATING AS ALL HELL, but anyway.

Did you know that picture isn’t even from one telescope? It’s from a network of telescopes that combined to form a PLANET-SIZED telescope.

And then you’ve got the software, which sorted through and compiled all that ridiculous amounts of data. Interferometry is some ugly shit. You’re basically trying to piece together a whole picture with only tiny bits, except you also have to teach a computer how to do that, because you can’t process petabytes of data with your little squishy wetware brain.

Technically, that photo is also 55 million years old. It takes 55 million years for the light from that black hole to reach us. That’s one of the oldest photos in history and us humans only just took it less than a month ago.

Science is so fucking cool.

Footnotes: Well, I succeeded in finding a new job, thank heavens. I think I’m also starting to fall into that pit of “taking on too many projects,” but y’know, we’ll see where it goes. I tell myself that every time, AND YET, here we are.

Anyway, continuity: see here for info on the magnet quench event.

Science: Again, I’m not ACTUALLY a physicist, I’m just hobbyist, and all the info about Liv’s collider has no guarantee of being accurate! The black hole picture was compiled by the Event Horizon Telescope team. Some more details on it can be found here. The whole project is incredibly impressive. (Also, if anyone does actually think Katie Bouman - the woman who became the “face” of the black hole image discovery - is “taking credit” for others’ work or something, this is a spectacular - and well-cited! - post about it.) And… Interferometry is pretty cool, but the computer science behind it is some YIKES-level stuff, in my opinion. This is a fairly good video on how it works, but you need to read the description too or it won’t make sense!

[iamveergill-blog]

The Algorithm

Most of his chores for the morning are done; clearing the snow, putting away dishes, checking emails. But Ray is late getting out of home, as he usually is. Professionally, he is at a position where he can flexibly manage his time, but he is conscious of the fact that he usually reaches work at around quarter past 9 when he aims to start at 8:30.

Today is a similar day, with a similar feeling. He finds himself deliberately slowing down his morning tasks. Although this feeling is familiar, the exact reason for it is not clear. He doesn’t try to bother too much as it is uncomfortable thinking about it. By now, he’s grown accustomed to it, so it’s easy to sweep it aside.

As he’s waiting at the bus stop, Rex notices someone approaching with a cup of coffee in each hand. As the person sits beside him, Rex looks at him amusedly.

Stranger: I know, I know; these are just to keep my hands warm. Don’t think I’ll ever get used to this cold!

Rex: Hahaha… I take it you’re not from here.

Stranger: Hell no! And hopefully, I won’t be here for long. I couldn’t survive here for too long.

Rex: Don’t worry, I’ve lived here my entire life and I’m still not used to this weather.

What brings you to this part of the world?

Stranger: Ah (looking down, smiling & shaking his head)… Chaos!

Rex: Pardon me?

Stranger: (Chuckles) Chaos theory! Every action or movement in the world being a result of an infinite number of events that have happened in the past and directly or indirectly led to it.

Something like your brother’s best friend recommending a sports academy to you, where you meet a girl that you develop a crush on, only to later get together with her friend, who then becomes your wife and the mother of your children. Her trajectory infuses with yours along with an infinite number of others and this can ultimately lead to you move to another country, win the lottery, die in a crash or even kill someone.

Rex: Oh jeez (laughing), the old free will debate?

What you’re saying is not incorrect, but I feel that it’s incomplete when it comes to explaining reality. You’re not considering that at any point in time I can choose to do something different, counter-intuitive. It’s highly unlikely, most people would never do that because we’re all a certain type of person reacting to circumstances in our own, but predictable ways. But even though I don’t exercise it, I have that free will. I can walk into work today and hand in my resignation. I won’t do it because it simply suits me to remain employed.

Basically, you go about life instinctively, but at any time you can prove you have free will by not doing what you would normally do in a situation … and do anything else!

Stranger: I can do you one better. I have a theory that helps prove that humans don’t have an ounce of free will. And it has nothing to do with religion or God!

Rex: (thinking for a few seconds) Hmm… Interesting…

Stranger: (putting down his coffee to shake Rex’s hand). I’m Joel by the way.

Rex: Rex (smiling, shaking his hand)

Joel: Okay, let me go back and start from what you were just saying about always having a choice in any situation.

You’re saying is that it’s obvious that our life and decisions are steered by our environment… by our culture, ethnicity, upbringing, family & friends, social status, incidents in our past, even our genetics… but we still have free will. We still have this power that can override all these other factors, and steer our life, if and when we choose.

Rex: Yes…

Joel: What about cases where the impact of your environment is extreme? You can actually turn to science to look into this. Phenomenon such as PTSD help us understand that events which we might not have any control over, can very strongly dictate our entire perspective on life, and sometimes even our decision whether it’s worth living or not.

Do you think when people who are suffering from severe mental health issues commit suicide, they still have that choice?

Rex: Well… I don’t know about that. But I’m sure you’d agree that in most cases, if not all, we can alter our decision based on our inner voice.

I…uh… I mean for example, even when all conditions point you to keep working at a job as it provides you anything material that you think you need, you can still possibly convince yourself to take that radical decision which goes against all your experience and predispositions.

Joel: My theory builds upon this understanding and takes it a step further!

What if your brain’s workings, your inner voice, all your thoughts, and actions are the result of a fundamental law of the universe? It works kind of like an algorithm… or an equation. A highly complex code that’s processed in your brain and drives your mental function.

Rex: …? (confused)

Joel: Hear me out now…

Just like a piece of software, “I” am the result of a string of commands that link together in an action-to-reaction chain. This string is presumably infinitely complex. And by “I”, I mean all my actions, inactions, feelings, emotions – any sort-of impact that I have on existence.

Every thought is a result of other stimuli in my life, rather than a consciously decided thing. This continuously evolves my outlook towards life and in turn, affects my next thought or action. When you really think about it, you realize the possibility that every thought you’ve had, every outburst, every instance where you backed down instead of standing your ground, everything left unsaid between important people, every decision made and not made, has reasons. And I say reasons because it’s a long chain and not one simple, easy to explain incident. The point is that nothing about your behavior or your existence is just random.

This theory is based on the notion that people are affected by their environment, but make no mistake it goes far ahead. According to this, both of your thoughts of quitting and not quitting your job, as well as the ultimate decision you take, are not under your control, but a result of this “code”.

In short, you’re not making independent decisions in the chaos of the universe. You are part of this system going from cause to effect, with just having an illusion of control.

Rex: But a computer program is predictable. We all react differently in different situations!

Joel: What if the algorithm takes into account all of your past experiences & predispositions and generates the thought that you have, and even dictates the decision that you take, without you knowing. My point is, we all react differently because we have had different histories.

Your brain has billions of neurons, which form links and pathways depending upon how it’s used. The links for things you do more often become stronger. It’s not too different in structure from a computer processor. Even machine learning follows a similar model, with A.I. using a kind of neural network of processors to develop more effective and efficient ways to reach a goal.

What if all the thoughts you’ve ever had, from the weirdest taboos to the seemingly life-defining epiphanies were the result this code. I think it’s not inconceivable; it doesn’t even point toward a God. In fact, it lends credence to the theory that there is no God, because it simply establishes a cause and effect relationship between everything and doesn’t leave the human experience to something divine.

Rex: Hmmm… interesting, but…

Joel: Just consider this as a thought experiment…

There is another universe, which has the same initial conditions as ours, the same matter and physical laws. Is it conceivable to you that there would be a planet earth and you would be born over there too? Who do you think you would be in that universe – a professional living the same life you’re living now or a billionaire living in New York, or maybe a homeless person living on the streets somewhere?

You’d have the exact same life! You and I would be sitting here talking about this in that reality too, because all your external conditions and your reactions towards them would’ve been the same.

The algorithm takes randomness out of the equation and replaces it with chaos. In that respect, every outcome in the world is theoretically predictable; just practically impossible to do so.

Scientists say that the universe by default moves towards disorder, toward complexity, something they call entropy. I’m just saying that maybe our lives are also dictated by the same physical laws. Our lives also become more complex with time as we continue to react based on the algorithm. Our brains, being a massive network of neurons with trillions of connections, sounds like the perfect processor for such a code. I mean maybe that’s what our brain works on with the other “90% of its capacity” (chuckles).

Rex: Well… our lives could also become more complex with time just because there’s that much more in them, in terms of relationships, memories, dreams, …baggage.

But what you’re saying does make sense to me on some level. Sometimes I feel more of a machine than a man myself (smiling). In my honest opinion, people can be captivated by an interesting and logical idea but that’s temporary. For it to truly sink in and be accepted, people will inevitably look for scientific proof. I mean if true, this idea can fundamentally change the way we see the world around us, and our place in it.

Joel: (Sigh)… you’re absolutely right. I don’t know how this concept can be proven in a lab; I mean it deals with your consciousness which is grossly misunderstood in and of itself. It’s all intangible.

There have been some studies performed at Cornell. They don’t prove this hypothesis but sort of point in the direction that we are not merely observers or independent entities just existing in the universe, but our mind or brain is directly connected to its fundamental properties like space and time. You should definitely look into them; I think they’re called “feeling the future”.

Rex: …

Joel: I think the so-called enlightened people of the world, the Buddhists, etc., realize all this and that’s why they just observe the passage of existence, without trying to control anything. That’s it, because that’s all they can do. They don’t escape the algorithm. Even this realization of theirs is a result of it. They just have a concrete reason now to stop giving a shit about every little thing that we do.

Rex: …

Joel: I think it makes it easier for us to put ourselves in others’ shoes and understand that everyone has a long chain of reasons for their behavior.

…

So… what do you think?

..About my theory? Sorry if it came off as a bit of a rant by the way (smiling).

Rex: Yeah, it’s interesting, sure. But I don’t know… if a person accepts it, I’m not sure how it would impact them. Would it liberate them, or increase the already crippling feeling of not being in control of their life?

Joel: But that’s not what the implica…

Rex: My bus is here. I gotta get going… can’t be late for work!

…

…

Take care (walking off).

Joel: … (confused) Sigh.

[dream2bu]

While I am not judging, I'm going to share some thoughts on something I witnessed today in a shopping mall and relate it to my own values. You may or may not agree, it's simply my thoughts and in no way should be considered right or wrong.

  Every sexual relationship involves power dynamics.  Sometimes they are subtle: one person is simply and wrongly playing games in order to get in the other’s pants while the other is interested in a relationship.  Other times they are part of a wider system of power, privilege, and oppression.

Differences in Age, Race, Gender, Wealth, Education, and other aspects of identity can create power dynamics in our sexual relationships, often ones that we are not even aware are there.  After all, we live in a society that affords certain people privileges that they have not earned and that disadvantages other people by the simple nature of their birth.  Those privileges lead to social power, and social power enters just about every relationship we have, especially sexual relationships.

Today, as I stated above, I witnessed a 70 something year old man with an early 20's young woman. They were clearly affectionate with PDA's in abundance (BTW, I do love PDA's), so I assumed it was not a father, daughter or grandfather, grandaughter relationship but, that's just my assumption. The male in me saw this and said, "yeah, you go boy!", the father in me said, "whoa, not my daughter!", and the open minded free spirit in me said, "okay, not something I'd consider due to a little bit of an age disparity but, who am I to judge consensual adults and their relationships?". That said, I want to discuss power structures in relationships and the often misunderstood use of that power by some people to, "get what they want".

Whenever one person holds power over another person (whether or not they acknowledge it), consent becomes tricky.  Some argue that when structural power differences are at play, consent can never be given and sex should not take place.  Now, by that logic, inter-racial relationships should never exist, and neither should, well, heterosexual sexual relationships.  I definitely do not think that’s the case, but in any sexual relationship, power dynamics should be acknowledged.

In all relationships, especially heterosexual relationships, power is very real.  Men have real social power that stems from our position as men in a system of patriarchy that was built by men, for men.  That power manifests in everything from our being paid more than women for our work to our ability to walk down the street, dressed however we like, without fear of sexual violence.  In sexual relationships, it means that we are taught to be in control, to be dominant, and to refrain from listening.  Women, on the other hand, often struggle to express their desires and their boundaries in sexual relationships with men.

Now consider that we’ve always been taught to “respect our elders” and to revere the knowledge, experience, opinions, and directives of those who are older than us.  This is even true of those who are a few years older than us!  I, for instance, was expected to respect my brother and cousins for, among other reasons, the simple reason that they were older.  Age creates social power, whereby those who are older hold a certain amount of power over those who are younger, and this is true in sexual relationships.  That power is only exacerbated when gendered power dynamics enter the equation.

Sexual consent is tricky.  I will ALWAYS be skeptical of relationships when older men (let alone much older men) are in relationships with young women.  Hell, I've had to be careful to check the power dynamics in my own relationships, as in the past, I have been in a relationship with a woman who was 6 years my junior.  In much the same way, we should be aware of and talking about the ways that power enters our sexual relationships.  In what ways could my identity put pressure on my partner in our sexual relationship?  In what ways can my partner’s identity make it hard to give consent clearly and honestly?

Am I saying that a younger woman cannot give consent to an older man?  No.  Definitely not.  Nor am I saying that a younger man cannot give consent to an older woman. But what I am saying is that the power dynamics at play must be considered and talked about if consent is going to be clearly given. Again, thoughtful and considerate consent of two adults, regardless of age, gender, or sexuality is not in question here, the misuse of power is.

This is why some of the most important sexual violence prevention work is geared toward encouraging healthy communication and teaching ways to communicate in sexual relationships (something that is important in all relationships, heterosexual or not).  We must be able to talk openly and honestly about everything in our sexual relationships.

The pathetic attitude of too many men.

As part of that process, though, we have a responsibility to consider and check our own identity privilege and power in relationships.  I want to think that there’s clearly something wrong with a 30-40 year old school teacher to seduce a 15-18 year old (no matter who came on to whom), but in a society where men are taught that everything in sex is in-bounds to them, I worry that he’s merely acting in exactly the way that we’re socialized to act.  I worry that the only thing that keeps this kind of thing from happening more is the fear of the social stigma that comes from a middle-aged man seducing a teenager, but we hear all the time about men leaving their middle aged wives for younger, more “conventionally attractive” women.  To them, it’s no different than trading in your car for a newer, sexier model.  In a world where women are seen as objects, is there really a difference?

[laceyspencer]

On A Logically Consistent Cosmological Model Based on Buddhist Philosophy-Juniper Publishers

Introduction

Where did we come from? Where should we go after dying? Who am I? When did the universe begin? How big is it? Will it end? Does the universe operate according to some laws or randomly? These and many other similar questions have been explored since very ancient times by many people including scientists, philosophers, religionists, and many theories have been proposed [1]. Today, the consensus among scientists, astronomers and cosmologists is the Big Bang Theory also known as the Big-Bang Cosmological Model (BBCM). The basics of the Big Bang theory are simple. In short, the Big Bang hypothesis states that all the current and past matter in the Universe came into existence at the same time, roughly 15 billion years ago. At this time, all matter was compacted into a very small ball with infinite density and intense heat called a Singularity. Suddenly, the Singularity began expanding, and the universe as we know it began.

This model has been confronted to a variety of observations that allow one to reconstruct its expansion history, its thermal history and the structuration of matter. Hence, what we refer to as the big-bang cosmological model (BBCM) today is radically different from what one may have had in mind a century ago. And I believe that a hundred years later, this big-bang model might also be radically different from what it is now. Burago pointed out that at least two obvious questions exist in the Big-Bang model [2].

The first question remained as to how the matter and energy were in this superdense elementary particle? It is considered incorrect to ask, what was around this particle before the explosion and whether the universe does expand? Because space and time in the universe also arose as a result of the Big Bang. It is assumed that protons, neutrons, positrons, electrons and other long-lived elementary particles formed 15 billion years ago and have reached our days unchanged. The second question arose from the insolvency of ideas about the explosion of a kind of “cosmic egg”, which was the explosion of the largest nuclear bomb. This point of view boils down to the assertion that “space” exploded, and not a material object. At the same time, the authors of this idea do not bother explaining what they think is a “space” and what can explode in an empty space? Therefore, many people are still working on the improvement of the Big-Bang model or the construction of other totally new cosmological models.

All the modern sciences including the BBCM are based on the materialism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental aspects and consciousness, are by-products or epiphenomena of material processes (the biochemistry of the human brain and nervous system, for example) without which they cannot exist. According to this doctrine the material creates and determines consciousness, not vice versa. Now this philosophy cannot explain many life phenomena, e.g. [3]. Sheldrake [4] has discussed in quite detail about the ten dogmas of modern science based on materialism and some people even claim that it is the time now to end the materialism, e.g. [5]. The most difficult question for the materialism believers is how the first matter comes from and what is the source of forces which cause every object to move in the universe.

In this paper a novel cosmological model based on Buddhist philosophy is proposed and therefore, we call this model as the Buddhist Cosmological Model (BCM). From this author’s judgement, it seems conceptually clear and logically consistent and it can explain many phenomena which belongs to the frontier problems of modern sciences. It is the author’s wish that critical comments can be received by publishing this paper.

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The Logically Consistent Cosmological Model

It must be emphasized that all the theories we are talking about even including the concepts of space and time are created by our human beings and they are only of meaning to our human beings and not animals. I am sure quite a lot of types of animals also have verbal languages which we do not understand. Now we are accustomed to describing any phenomenon in the space-time framework. In this paper, I do not provide any new definitions for space and time. A quote of Kant is: “Space and time are the framework within which the mind is constrained to construct its experience of reality” [6].

In the BBCM, it is very clear that the universe is finite in time but unclear whether it is finite or infinite in space. In the present BCM, it is specifically defined that the universe is of infinite nature in both space and time. The world is defined of finite nature in both space and time and their relationship is expressed by the following equation:

Each world is cyclically operated according to the process of formation, the steady state, deterioration and explosion to emptiness. In BCM, the Big Bang is the origin of the world but not the universe. Using this definition, the awkward question of the origin of the universe can be avoided.

Different from materialism which assumed matter is the fundamental substance in nature, the Buddhism assumed that the energy is the fundamental essence of the universe. The universe consists of two types of energy, explicit energy and dark energy. Dark energy is defined as the essence of a life corresponding to the alaya consciousness in Buddhist theory [7,8], it has the capability to accumulate the explicit energy into matter and decompose the matter into explicit energy. Explicit energy is the lifeless energy which can be accumulated by the alaya consciousness to be explicit matter or dark matter and then to bodies or objects. The level can be sensed by our human beings is defined as the explicit matter and the rest is defined as the dark matter.

Both Explicit Energy and Dark Energy in the Universe Always Exists and Satisfies the Conservation Law, but not the Matter

This is the fundamental assumption made in BCM. Through this assumption, the awkward question of the origin of life in the universe can also be avoided. All matter is accumulated by the dark energy (the alaya consciousness). This answers how the first matter comes from and the source of all types of forces in the universe which cause all the movements and changes of the universe. However, it must be emphasized here that what we have observed by our eyes are only small part in the world we are living and not the whole universe. It is the over-claim that this is the whole universe, and this is similar as a frog sitting at the bottom of a well.

There are three types of life in the universe, the alaya consciousness only, the alaya consciousness with an insensible body (also dark matter to our human being) and the alaya consciousness with a sensible body (being animals and human beings) and these three types of lives can also be divided into six categories according to their happiness, Heaven, Asura, Human being, Animal, Ghost, Hell. Only human beings and animals are with a sensible body by our human beings. Non-existence of other types of lives is also a belief or an over-claim rather than a scientific proof. Lives with only the alaya consciousness only exists in the Heaven, they are the highest level of life in the universe while the lives in the Hell is the lowest level in the universe. So according to this BCM, human beings are not the most intelligent creatures in the universe but in the middle level. All the matter used by other four types of lives and together with their bodies belong to dark matter.

Everything in the Universe Including all the Worlds and Each Individual Life is Operated According to the Causal-Effect Law

This can be regarded as the second assumption of this BCM. For any lifeless object in the world we are living, no matter whether we can see (explicit matter) or not (dark matter), it will experience the cycle of formation, the steady state, deterioration and destroy and for each individual life, no matter whether we can see (human beings and animals) or not (other four types of lives), she/he will be reincarnated within the six types of lives in the universe. Here it must be pointed out that according to the causal-effect law, reincarnation of my live is not confined to this world I am living, but in the whole universe. Even for the alaya consciousness only life in the Heaven, she/he will also have a life span and can be reincarnated into other five types with a body in the universe, not necessarily in the same world as he/she lived in a previous life. Reincarnation of all lives is a law of nature [9]. So, in this BCM, parents provide only the bodies to their children and not the life. We are very soon reached a stage that we can clone our bodies, but the essence of life does not change, and any lives produced this way should have the same rights as us.

Human’s consciousness includes 8 types, they are consciousness at eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind, the manas consciousness, and finally the alaya consciousness. When one is dying, the consciousness at eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind will be lost. The function of the seventh consciousness whose formal name is called the manas consciousness, is the bridge between the former six consciousness with the eigth whose formal name is called the alaya consciousness. Only the alaya consciousness will continue to exist and it is the source of life forces and it stores all the karmas in the previous life history. The dying process is a process of the separation of the alaya consciousness with the body. For the detailed theory of Buddhism, one can refer to references [7,8].

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Explanation Power of BCM

Through my education and scientific training, I cannot see any logical problem with BCM, it gives a clear definition to all the concepts used and state clearly only two fundamental assumptions are needed. One is the existence of energy, different from the materialist world view, there are basically two types of energy, one is the explicit energy which is the essence of all matter, no matter explicit matter which we can see or feel or the dark matter which we cannot see or feel, and the other is dark energy which is the essence of life. This is called the alaya consciousness in the Buddhist philosophy. The other assumption is that everything in the universe follows the causal-effect law. How to reveal this law for each object is the mission of our scientific researches. With this model, it avoids many awkward questions related to the origin of universe and life in the universe and it answers the important questions of the origin of matter and the source of forces behind. It has automatically revealed the most difficult part of modern physics about dark matter and dark energy. It can easily explain many other phenomena in the world we have observed. To my own knowledge, this model seems to be able to explain all the anomalous phenomena mentioned in Ref. [3]. In this section, further explanation powers to some important problems are shown. Of course, it is impossible for one paper to cover every aspect and these can just be regarded as a demonstration.

Origin of the Earth and Life on the Earth

In this BCM, it is natural that any star like the earth was created by many lives in the universe and when the condition suits, the relevant alaya consciousness will enter a body and that is the origin of life on the earth and any stars.

Existence of the Extraterrestrial Life

It is also natural that the extraterrestrial life exists everywhere in the universe, however, up to now, we have not found the macro creatures which we can see in our neibouring stars yet. But it cannot refuse the possibility that other types of lives exist which we cannot see now since a very high percent of dark matter we do not know. In this BCM, the dark matter is those lives and their material stuff for living. As a matter of the fact, even on the earth, other four types of lives may also exist although we could not see them by conventional means but there are some other means which can communicate with them. One approach is through a mediumship described in Chapter 10 of Ref. [3]. But this approach may only communicate with lives in the Ghost, whether a medium is able to communicate with lives in the Heaven and Hell is a problem for further study.

Criterion of a Perfect Human Life

For believers in materialism, life only has one term. It is hard to define a perfect state. Now, most of the people assess some’s success by how much money he owned. In order to earn more money, he works hard and fights with others due to the resource limit. One day when he is dying, he cannot take any money away. He should not know anything whether his money has given to his children or others. Therefore, it is hard to see the difference between a hard-working person and a lazy person. The fighting for limited resources between human beings cause a lot of social problems. In BCM, it is clear to make the next life in a higher level is much more important than earning money in this life. The highest life is the Budda which every person can be if he always does good things [7,8]. This could make the society more harmony than the current materialism belief.

How to Know the Essence of Universe

In BCM, there are two methods for human beings knowing the operational laws of the world, one is the current knowledge learning method. This is based on the principle of a blind man feeling an elephant. We are approaching the truth, but it hardly knows the truth. The second method is to open your “eyes” to see the elephant. However, how to open this “eye” which can see the truth needs to be practiced. In Buddhist religion, there are many methods to develop this capability for different individuals. In general, meditation is one of the main methods to be used [10].

Artificial Intelligence and Human Consciousness

Nowadays, artificial intelligence progresses very fast and it has defeated human beings in the game of Go [11]. Some people started to worry that one day artificial intelligence will be more powerful than human beings. According to BCM, human beings can only make bodies but not the alaya consciousness. The unique property of the alaya consciousness is its ability of “self-knowing oneself”, that is, in the moment of perceiving the outside world, there is a kind of vivid and clear, self-awareness. This kind of intrinsic character of the present, clear and self-awareness, in the Dharma, is called the “self-certification of the alaya consciousness” or the meaning of “self-knowing oneself”. Such a kind of conscious and conscious experience is the fundamental difference between our human beings and robots.

Theory of everything

Whether the world works regularly or not, and whether the nature of the world is knowable or unknowable, Einstein and Bohr have debated these two questions for more than 40 years, no one was persuaded by the other until their death. After that, physicists divided into two camps to continue the debate. The detailed story can be found in many articles and books, e.g. [12,13]. Einstein believes that the world works regularly, and the operational law can be revealed by our scientific research. So, he wished to establish a theory of everything (TOE) but he failed. Many others are continuing this direction.

In a previous paper by this author, a simple idea on the unification of Einstein-Bohr Controversy was presented [14]. My main point is that the controversy was caused by Bohr’s overclaim and there is no contradiction between them. Philosophically, we should believe that (1) the universe including macro and micro worlds always works regularly or with rules, and (2) these rules can always be revealed by us humans. Practically, due to the complexity of the actual problem and the time limit of our human life, we may not be able to reveal the real rules of the system operation in our lifetime, especially it is hard for us to identify all the influencing factors. If all the influencing factors have not been identified for a system, then the transfer function is an approximate format. We can define those ignored factors as hidden variables. Because of the existence of hidden variables and the approximate nature of the transfer function, there is no one to one correspondence between input vector and output value, and the system is uncertain.

In this case, we should apply a theory who is able to handle uncertainty such as probability and statistics. In conclusion, for systems with no hidden variables, the transfer function can be given precisely using deterministic mathematics. For systems with hidden variables, the mathematics with uncertainty, such as the theory of probability and statistics, should be applied. There is no inconsistency to be debated. The deepening research can be carried out in two directions. One is to study the mechanism more precisely and reduce or eliminate hidden variables. The second is to study its application. On the premise of only considering the currently accepted explicit influencing factors, probability and statistics theory is applied to improve the reliability of prediction as much as possible under the condition of existing information or collecting more information only on these factors.

Philosophically speaking, there is no need to make the claims that (1) there is no rule in the micro world operation and (2) there exists irreducible uncertainty or objective uncertainty. From this author’s knowledge, Shen Zhiyuan [15] has made some success to progress the TOE. In terms of the theory for handling uncertainty, the author recommends the quantum decision theory (QDT) developed by Yukalov & Sornette [16,17] which can consider the preferences of the individuals/players. The decision makers’ brain is assumed of a dual nature, with brain processes divided to conscious and subconscious constituent parts and the computed quantum strategic probabilities consisted of two parts, the first one being rationality related and the other one capturing biases, emotions and feelings.

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Summary and Conclusion

In this paper, a novel cosmological model based on Buddhist philosophy is proposed and from this author’s judgement, it seems conceptually clear and logically consistent. It can overcome many deficiencies of the current Big-Bang cosmological model and explain many phenomena which belongs to the frontier problems of modern sciences. One important feature is that if this BCM is proved to be valid, it may have great impact on human behavior since nowadays most of the people believe in the materialism which is the cause of many human conflicts for the limited resources.

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Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the State Key Program of National Natural Science of China “Structural Reliability Analysis on the Spherical Hull of Deepsea Manned Submersibles” (Grant No. 51439004), the General Program of National Natural Science of China “A study on the water absorption property of the buoyancy material for the full ocean depth manned submersible” (Grant No. 51879157), the “Construction of a Leading Innovation Team” project by the Hangzhou Municipal government, the Startup funding of New-joined PI of Westlake University with grant number (041030150118).

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[boxwars]

The Best Pc Games for Gamers

PC gamers have an entirely incredible thing going. Intriguing, trial independent games? Correct. Complex procedure recreations? Completely. The shiniest, prettiest variants of large spending console games? They get a great deal of those, as well.

Suppose you've as of late joined the positions of the PC tip top. Which games would it be advisable for you to introduce? Start with the ones in this post.

Crusader Kings III

It's elusive an all inclusive assessment in gaming, yet here's one that is about as near consistent as you can get: Crusader Kings III is superior to Crusader Kings II in fundamentally every manner. It's more amazing in scope however slighter in swell and busywork. It's simpler to get (simply ask any newcomer) and harder to put down (ask any long-lasting fan). It has a cleaner interface, more keen character models, and it's likewise massively wonderful. Beginning in the ninth century, you shepherd a dynastic line up and through the fifteenth century. To pinpoint Crusader Kings III as a technique game wouldn't be wrong, but on the other hand it's reductive: Yes, it's a procedure game, but at the same time it's part the board sim, part visual novel, and part job player. Included all together, you get one entire wonderful.

A Good Match For: History buffs. Enthusiasts of substantial technique games with not many managerial errands. Champions.

Not A Good Match For: Anyone searching for a blustery instructional exercise; however simpler to get than its archetype, Crusader Kings II is still more perplexing than most games.

Supergiant's Greek folklore themed Hades was produced in the inferno of roguelikes. That implies, in the same way as other class champions, you'll bite the dust (a great deal) as you over and again go through a layered prison loaded with randomized adversaries, gradually accumulating level-ups and gaining steady ground with each round. Be that as it may, Hades spins a tried and true recipe by wagering enormous on account. You play as Prince Zagreus, the child of the divine force of the dead. Your objective, apparently, is to get away from the hidden world—and your dad's pitiless, iron-fisted rule. On your journey, in exemplary Homerian style, you're helped by the Olympian divine beings (Zeus, Athena, Dionysus, and so forth). As you play you get the opportunity to more readily know these divinities and different individuals from the Greek mytheme. Each character has an authentic, fleshed-out relationship with Zagreus, one that pushes forward with each run. In Hades, playing doesn't simply gain you more ability focuses or better weapons. You additionally procure a ridiculously incredible story.

A Good Match For: Fans of roguelikes, activity games, isometric RPGs, dating sims, Greek folklore, and any earlier games in Supergiant's oeuvre.

Not A Good Match For: The effectively baffled. The individuals who don't care for excited, relentless activity games. Sisyphus.

Urban communities: Skylines initially dispatched in 2015 as a dynamite if marginally wonky city-manufacturer. Indeed, the traffic repairman might've been busted, yet it caught the particulars of metropolitan arranging—drafting locale, plotting plumbing, building bicycle paths, calibrating charge strategy—not at all like whatever else. In the years since, Skylines has become the best city-building game around. Patches resolved a considerable lot of the crimps. Developments presented winter climate, night-and-day advances (total with magnificent nightfalls), and enough open travel choices to make any reformist urbanist sob in bliss. Yet, the genuine development originated from the mod network. Ambitious modders based on and improved essentially every aspect of Skylines. You can download graphical update mods, custom structures, extended guides, and changed and smoothed out game frameworks. Even one consequently destroys deserted structures, adequately eliminating the most monotonous aspect of the game. The outcome is a city-building game that additionally gives you a sample of playing god.

The Sims 4

What more is there to state? It's The Sims! The fourth portion of Maxis' long-running life test system turned out in 2014 and, through an apparently relentless series of updates and fixes, has just improved as time passes. A year ago's university development, specifically, catches how and why this section constantly reverberates: This is life. It's untidy and unusual, and you have no clue about how your Sims may respond in different circumstances. However, in that too-genuine estimate of life exists boundless potential. In all of computer games, scarcely any character makers are more top to bottom. You can coordinate your characters how you need (generally), and shape their general climate how you please (for the most part). Furthermore, in a checked improvement over past passages—one that further catches the impulses of reality—your Sims can both perform multiple tasks and feel feeling.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

There's no lack of desire in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Geralt of Rivia's most recent experience is gigantic, a world you can become mixed up in for quite a long time and still have bounty to do. There's a ton for stalwart Witcher fans to appreciate, however you don't have to have played a Witcher game to appreciate the hell out of this one. While numerous games these days have rambling scenes, The Witcher 3 is completely thick. Each niche and crevice is loaded up with vital characters, astute composition, and awards for inquisitive players. The principle story is as exciting as it is sincerely depleting, and the side journeys are really worth doing. Since its delivery in 2015, The Witcher 3 has gotten a huge amount of free updates and upgrades alongside two marvelous paid developments, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. The full experience is presently significantly greater, more extravagant, and over and above anyone's expectations.

Also read here more about get burning steppes in wow.

A Good Match For: Open-world fans, particularly the individuals who appreciated Skyrim yet were disillusioned by the battle. In The Witcher 3, battling is close to as pleasant as investigation.

Not a Good Match For: People who esteem their time and public activity, any individual who needs a game they can complete in a modest bunch of hours.

Development VI

In the a long time since Civilization V came out, we figured out how to survey it not once however twice. That is how much these games loan themselves to playing and replaying, and Civ VI is the same. The most recent section includes a great deal of groundbreaking plans to the Firaxis' time tested equation, and keeping in mind that some novel thoughts work in a way that is better than others, the entire is as regular more than the total of its parts. The mechanical changes and refinements are enveloped with an inconspicuous, table game like tasteful that is as satisfying on your 20th hour as it was on your 10th. We'll be playing this game for quite a long time.

A Good Match For: Civ fans, individuals who have never played a Civ game, essentially any individual who doesn't effectively despise Civ.

Note:Read here more about wow.

Last Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

In 2010, Square Enix dispatched Final Fantasy XIV Online, and it was only the most exceedingly awful—carriage, over-confounded, incomplete; a wreck. The designers went through three years remaking the game starting from the earliest stage, and the outcome is one of the best greatly multiplayer online pretending games ever constructed. It's beginning and end fans love about Final Fantasy—rich fine art, solid story, flawless music—just greater, all folded over a conventional MMO system. It's that Square Enix clean that separates it from its rivals, acquiring it a spot in this rundown.

A Good Match For: Fans of imagination pretending computer games hoping to take the greatly multiplayer risk. The first Final Fantasy XIV was a tangled wreck of clashing thoughts, when all players needed was a standard MMO game with the recognizable highlights of a Final Fantasy game. That is actually what A Realm Reborn is.

Not a Good Match For: Folks terrified of month to month memberships. In spite of the MMORPG class overall moving towards allowed to-play installment.

[ghostlylightdonut]

‘At war’ with a novel coronavirus; 

or, 

An exposé on how much Western society is permeated with influential people who have deluded themselves into thinking that their ability to manipulate words, images, and sounds gives them the ability to control reality itself.

Philosopher Stanley Cavell once asked the question: ‘what kind of world is it in which, though recognized to be patriarchal, there are no patriarchs?’

We might ask a similar question of a world seemingly predicated on ‘leadership models’ [and a culture obsessed with] apperceiving itself as led, to the extent that leaders themselves might then drop out of the equation, and a form of human fronting take their place. 

Leadership... has become virtual or hauntological; mechanised and bureaucratised to the extent that human agency can become circumvented.

Stephen Walzer has reflected on this ontological trickery, telling us that “the tyranny of war is often described as though war itself were the tyrant, a natural force like flood or famine [or perhaps pandemic virus] or, personified, a brutal giant stalking his human prey.” 

The curious, and arguably useful, observation for us at this juncture is that just as the bloody reality of war cannot be properly concealed behind the monster of ‘war itself’, the contingent and political responses (and non-responses) to COVID-19 can never be properly hidden by the efforts to depoliticise and technofy the crisis.

Narratives of war often serve a curiously dual purpose. In speaking of how war is inevitable and its cruelty unavoidable, we accomplish two things: Firstly, we absolve ourselves of responsibility and of blame; and secondly, we perpetuate the correctness of our own assertion...  That is to say, if war is inevitable, we can scarcely be held to blame for its conduct, and in going to war on this premise, we are able to (blamelessly) prove ourselves right. 

The old refrain, after 9/11 inaugurated the war on terror, went, ‘but war can’t be waged against an abstract noun' [!] 

Hannah Arendt has a concept she calls infallible prediction. She deploys this idea in order to explain how (totalitarian) leaders have the power to create certain realities. She argues that their predictions are in fact statements of intent. By phrasing intentions as predictions, they can hide from blame. That “war is hell”, then, can be understood less as a description and more as a modus operandi. 

This is no apocalypse, but will soon be made up of new apocalyptic assemblages: individual and nuclear sufferings and tragedies... The real crisis is in... the social structures that have been underwriting the precariousness [of our] ways of living for so long: it always has been.

Thomas Hobson and Daniel Bristol excerpts from everydayanalysis.net, 2020.03.18

[reeses-picks]

Billie Eilish is pop’s newest wunderkind: WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? review

Billie Eilish is shaping up to be pop’s newest wunderkind, signed off on by the former titleholder herself. On a surprisingly well-crafted album, she makes a convincing case for herself as the voice of her generation. At its best, the album fine-tunes Eilish’s aesthetic and dismantles pop tropes, but the throughline of the LP is the often melodramatic teenage mind, which she approaches with consummate care.

★★★★★★★★☆☆

In a way, teen pop stars reflect the state of pop music of their time. The (largely female) teen music sensations of the aughts came from the likes of Disney Channel and Nickelodeon, and so they (or rather, their image) reflected the whims of corporations and industry big-leagues at the time: clean, unproblematic, uncomplicated role models. It explains why the narratives of these artists now, who have come to dominate the cultural zeitgeist, seem so incongruent with those from their past. Recent career-defining projects from Ariana Grande (Sweetener, thank u, next) and Demi Lovato (Tell Me You Love Me) render them unrecognizable from their earlier spotless identities; sexual liberation is a common theme, of course, but more interesting is their acknowledgement of cracks underneath the surface. The Jonas Brothers’ smashing comeback earlier this year is only made possible by the braggadocio that only sex can bring.

The pop machine remains entrenched to this day, but there are signs of a new force taking hold. Today’s rising stars come from YouTube and SoundCloud, predicated on actualizing the idea of freedom of expression, and altogether they reflect the democratization of pop music, if not of society as a whole, and the liberation that follows; without the presence of gatekeepers, they are forming their own image, completely unfazed by notions of commercial viability. Thus, Billie Eilish, the most recent SoundCloud find, mercifully relatively untouched by the machine, is nothing like the teen sensations of yore. For the past three years, she has carved out her own peculiar space, a space only those at the fringe would dare come close, and on her debut full-length LP, WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?, she fine-tunes that aesthetic with almost surgeon-like accuracy, but not by way of repackaging it more tastefully for the mainstream. It certainly sounds so at the beginning: most of “bad guy” sounds like a complete about-face, riffing on a melody that smacks of commercialized Halloween, almost like caricaturing her own aesthetic. But the album only properly begins in the song’s third act: a heavily slowed-down, bass-heavy, spoken-word section that is closer to her modus operandi. But it also works like a full-throated cackle -- “bitch, you thought” -- in the face of detractors, as if she can sense their sigh of relief (maybe she actually can). That stubborn self-assuredness and humorous self-awareness are just some of the things that make this album so enjoyable.

And so we enter the Billie Eilish Experience. The third act of “bad guy” acts as a lead-in but also a predictor of the album’s overarching style -- bass-heavy, largely guided by rhythm, otherwise sparse instrumentation -- and many of the album’s highlights follow this formula. The formula finds its most undiluted expression in “xanny”: the song never achieves anything close to a melody except the bridge, and its drop entails the most aggressive use of bass in recent pop history, probably blowing out most earphones in the mass-market range and rendering Eilish’s vocals totally unintelligible. But parts of the formula are scattered everywhere: bouts of very pronounced bass pop up in the middle of songs; sometimes there is a sole piano or guitar or ukulele, whatever seems to be her preference at the time; other times she hums out her own backing melody. There are also occasions where the tempo slows down way into ballad territory, especially towards the end of the album, and those moments are relatively less successful, particularly the closer “i love you,” which comes dangerously close to becoming a sobfest.

It has become pretty clear that most pop artists who claim to be anti-pop are bullshit, but judging by the way Eilish pushes back against pop tropes here, she may be one of the first true anti-pop pop figures (which is totally a category that exists), even if the musical structures she employs here are purely pop. On “xanny,” she refuses to succumb to the appeal of recreational drug use, while “bad guy” is a wholehearted embrace of villainy à la Taylor Swift, though Eilish’s attempt definitely carries more bite. Elsewhere, “wish you were gay” begins with an acoustic guitar, the epitome of pop authenticity, but subverts that with sounds of an audience -- the pitiful aww’s, the slight chuckles, and of course, the applause; she knows all of this is fake, and the broken fourth wall is a delightful sight (the subject matter is quite a misstep, however). But she is not always so proficient. The “good girl vs. bad girl” trope makes an appearance on “all the good girls go to hell” -- needless to say, she’s an advocate for the latter -- but it keeps the false dichotomy in place, instead of doing away with it entirely. Perhaps the biggest misfire here is “my strange addiction,” a mindless perpetuation of the equation between intense romantic attraction and a drug-induced high, entirely antithetical to Eilish's adamant rejection of the latter. (It is rather telling that the album’s biggest misfire is one of only two tracks Eilish did not take part in writing, but it is also surprising that she did not scrap it the moment she saw it.)

The common thread throughout the LP is the often melodramatic teenage mind, which Eilish approaches with consummate care. There is the inflated ego in “you should see me in a crown,” the quiet fury in “xanny,” the hopeless romantic in “wish you were gay,” the emotional confusion of “i love you,” or even the paranoia in “ilomilo.” But what Eilish arguably captures the best is teens’ often misguided self-loathing, particularly in the aftermath of a romantic break-up: “8” is Eilish’s “Liability,” a masterful treatise on low self-esteem, written by the perpetrator in the perspective of the sufferer. There are countless other brilliant songwriting moments like this on the album; thus, it is quite a feat that the entirety of the record’s writing is done by a grand total of two people. But “8” may count as some of Eilish’s and FINNEAS’s (brother and co-writer) career-best writing: melodramatic, yes, but tentative enough that the drama flies just under the radar (though that is also partly the credit of Eilish’s vocal performance). Most of the experiences on WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP might be universal, but some moments feel specifically informed by this day and age. “all the good girls go to hell” reflects generational anxieties about climate change, while “listen before i go” prompts hard questions about how we talk about suicide and depression (my own contribution: is there an acceptable way to talk about it in a public domain?); on a lighter note, “my strange addiction” faintly projects the millennial obsession with The Office.

It all culminates in “bury a friend,” the crown jewel of WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP and the musical apex of Eilish’s young career, where the best attributes of the album all converge. Its music video looks like a miniature horror movie, but the song itself sounds like it, too. The track’s staccato beat evokes horror’s signature flickering lights. Eilish’s hushed tone, whether alone or accompanied with backing vocals, makes the eerie atmosphere of the song, the background voice sounding like it is lurking directly behind her, waiting for a jump scare when she least expects it; her distorted screams would also make for a great jump scare. The errant sounds on the track -- the dental drill, the staple gun, the broken glass, the Easy-Bake Oven -- resemble things that go bump in the night. The song is written in the perspective of the monster under your bed, but not so much in the sense of the bogeymen of childhood as in the sense of one’s personal “monsters” and how we can all become paralyzed by them. The line between the person and the “monster” is never made clear, and by the end of the song, there really is no telling between the two; we are our own worst enemy, Eilish seems to point out.

What does this all mean, in the context of this new era of pop music? There are certainly many sweeping observations to be made: that Eilish signals a major shift in how pop stars are made, that she is reinventing teen-pop stardom, that her success represents an era where adolescents are finally taken seriously. But perhaps the most apparent conclusion is that Billie Eilish is shaping up to be pop's newest wunderkind, signed off on by the former titleholder herself, evidenced by a body of work uncompromising in its premise and surprisingly well-crafted in its substance. Perhaps our first taste of the album, the audacious yet clairvoyant “you should see me in a crown,” put it best: watch her make us bow, one by one by one.

[its-called-a-balaclava]

The Team Fortress Testing Initiative

The sequel to Scout: The Aperture Test Subject (link here)

A situation lands ALL of the mercs into cooperative testing. No big deal, they’ve worked together on the field time and time again, right? Well, it’s not that simple.

Multi-Chapter Work-In-Progress

Teen and Up Audiences

Below: from @northern-raven (link here)

Chapter One: What’s With the Boots?

“And that’s what that book ‘The Metamorphosis’ was about; a human who was so stupid that he turned into a bug, so his brain would fit properly into his skull.” Wheatley said to Scout, who was listening with rapt attention.

“Damn. Heavy’s always sayin’ it’s a metaphor about how change affects people or somethin’ like that.” Scout responded, bouncing a tennis ball against the wall.

“Well, what would he know? You know what a PhD is? It’s a form of self-validation. And his PhD is in Russian literature, isn’t it?” Wheatley asked.

“Yeah,” Scout said

“Well, the original text was in German , and you don’t hear that doctor saying anything about redemption, do you?” Wheatley pointed out.

“Yeah… yeah !” Scout said, standing up. “You’re right!”

“Of course I’m right,” Wheatley said. “Now―”

“I don’t know what he’s talking about, but he’s definitely incorrect.” Spy said, walking into the room, making Scout jump.

“What are you doin’ here?” Scout was indignant.

Spy sighed. “I need the thing,” he said, gesturing to Wheatley.

“Well, what happened to your old sapper?” Scout rather liked hanging out with Wheatley. He was a goldmine of information, and he wasn’t condescending about sharing it.

“It’s in the repair shop. Having to disable dozens of level three sentries will do that to a machine.”

Wheatley’s eye widened.

“Thank you,” Spy said, snatching the robot from the floor.

During the battle:

“Are we sneaking?”

“Alright, I’m disabling this machine now…”

“Act natural, we’ve done nothing wrong, right?”

“Why don’t you just stab him, that way we can eliminate the need for hacking?”

After seventeen trips to respawn, the battle was over, and Spy didn’t hesitate to follow their Engineer back to his workshop.

“Can you find some way to remove the speakers on this thing?” Spy asked, holding Wheatley up on the air.

“What? Hey!” he said as he was being waved around in the air for emphasis.

“Uh…” Engie really wasn’t prepared for this debacle.

“If you removed my speakers, I would be a living, sensory being, with no way to communicate to the outside world. Do you know what that is? That is torture. Literally. Philosophically, that is one of the worst forms of torture a being can experience.” Wheatley said, still held high in the air.

“Y’all know I don’t do philosophy.” Engie said. He’d met the “Ap-Sap”― Wheatley― once before, when handling the calibration settings, but he’d been programming the device at the time, so he’d never heard it talk.

“Well―” Wheatley began, but Spy cut him off.

“Please, just disable it.”

“Tell ya what, I’ve got your old sapper,” he handed it over. “Right here. That oughta do ya.”

Spy frowned at it. “True, but if I ever have to use this thing again…”

Even though Engie didn’t do philosophy, and he didn’t really think the robot was sentient, he didn’t feel comfortable taking away its ability to speak. “Look, even if I would shut this thing up,” he said, taking it from Spy, “I don’t know if I could. This ain’t like any machinery I’ve ever seen. Hell, the bolts alone don’t match any of my wrenches.”

Engie turned Wheatley around in his hands, analyzing the core-turned-sapper.

“I feel this is a violation of my personal space,” Wheatley protested.

“Aperture Laboratories― that was all the talk at my class reunion, shame it was just a myth.” Engie said all to himself, looking at the logo printed on the metal.

“What do you mean, a myth?” Spy said, raising an eyebrow. Normally, he would have just prodded Engie back to the present, but that sapper had caused much more trouble than just shoddy fieldwork.

“Well, the factory creates sappers and other specialty devices, apparently Pauling got this sapper from the place.” Engie murmured. “But the story is that the place is actually some messed up research facility. People trapped there as human guinea pigs, technology unlike any ever seen― stuff that would put my teleporters to shame. And actual AIs. This thing,” Engie gestured to Wheatley. “Is likely just a context-stimulated response generator. A box that pretends to talk, in layman’s terms. Probably why Pauling never got any more sappers from the company.” Engie said.

“That’s not true!” Wheatley protested, but it was lost amidst the conversation.

“Why do you care?” Engie asked Spy, puzzled. “Normally you just try and stop me from yammerin’.”

“I think I’ve taken a tour of this facility you are talking about. It’s not just a factory. And I have some questions you might know the answer to.” Spy was calm.

Engie was not. “You’ve ‘taken a tour’? Wait, wait― does this have anything to do when you had to find Scout about a week ago? And y’all missed dinner?”

“To all of those questions, yes.” Spy said.

“Well, then, bring him in. If this is anything like you’re implying, I need to hear more about it.” Engie was leaning forward on his desk chair now, animated with curiosity.

“For scientific purposes or so you will be the center of attention at your next class reunion?” Spy questioned him.

“Probably both,” Engie replied.

By the time they had finished the story― Scout and Spy rushing to cut each other off whenever they could― it was not only Engie, but all of the mercenaries, who were gathered around the workshop table.

“Interesting,” Sniper said.

“So ‘interesting’, I find it hard to believe it happened. Especially considering that we’re only hearing about it now.” Medic chimed in.

Nobody noticed Scout leave the room.

“Why would I lie about this?” Spy addressed Medic, but it was Heavy who answered:

“Shame. You were lost.” the words were short, but they carried weight. Spy, lost and scared in the middle of nowhere? Unthinkable, but more likely than the other story.

“First of all, that is not what happened,” said Spy. “And, secondly, if it had― which I again will remind you it didn't― you really think that going along with a story that Scout made up would be my course of action? Of course not. The sheer ridiculousness of the event proves it to be true. There was simply no point in saying anything earlier, especially since I knew the credibility of this story is doubtful at best.”

“Well―” Demo said, but he was cut off by Scout slamming the door open like a drama queen on a reality T.V. show.

“If I were makin’ this up, then where did I get these ?” he planted a foot in front of him― a foot encased in a Long-Fall Boot. He’d been set to wear them everywhere, right up until he’d caught himself in the mirror after he’d come home. He’d stowed them in the back of his closet and never put them on again.

Well, until now.

It was impossible to tell who burst out laughing first. Engie calmed down the soonest, chortling until he looked closer at the sleek quality and careful design of the boots. “Come over here, boy,” he said, a grin still tugging at the side of his mouth. “Lemme see that.”

Scout bounced over― literally; these things were like springs for his feet― and  raised a foot, trying to keep the awkwardness to a minimum.

Engie could see the purpose of the boots, the way they were structured so a fall would never hurt the wearer, so long as they landed feet-first. He tapped his chin, Newton’s laws and energy equations swirling around in his mind.

Engie said, “Boy, I need you to walk around. Need to see more of it. How it works and such.” Actually, he didn’t. But when would an opportunity like this arise again?

Scout blushed, but it was for the best. He paraded around the room, slowly walking heel-to-toe as he watched Engie watching him.

Engie did his best to keep a straight face. “Alright, now walk backwards.”

“Wha―”

Engie snapped his fingers. “It’s important, boy.”

Everyone had caught on, and as Scout walked backwards― and straight into the wall― Demo had to hide his laughs in a round of fake coughing.

“These ceilings are high, boy.” Engie said, and it was all he could do to keep the smile off of his face. “Jump.”

“Did― didja say ‘jump’?”

“Yup. You have to jump.” The ceilings were tall, but if Engie’s guess was right, they weren’t tall enough. “Just once.”

Scout was scarlet now. But it was okay; it was to prove it happened. And Engie was a total genius at these things.

He sprang up and collided with the ceiling, hitting a light fixture with his forehead and landing on the floor with no dignity whatsoever.

“HAH! HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!” Engie cried, slapping his knee. The rest joined in for another fit of laughter. “Holy hell, that was funny, boy. But in all seriousness,” he said, seeing the red mark on Scout’s head and feeling bad, “All I wanna see now is the gun.”

“The… gun?” Scout asked.

Engie put his hands on the table. “This could make teleportin’ on the field revolutionary. If you can give it to me, within a week, I can give a working model to all of us.”

“Um, I don’t have it,” Scout said, avoiding his gaze.

Engie straightened up. “What do ya mean, you don’t have it?”

“Uh, I think I dropped it somewhere after we left the place, before we got back in Spy’s car. It’s cool, though,” Scout said. “I like the teleporters we have now.”

Engie leaned in closer to everyone gathered around the table. He had a fire in his eyes― and as everyone would soon find out, enough metal detectors to go around.

Next Chapter

Notes:

I don’t usually put images in these posts, but this was just perfect… I just wish it would show up with higher res but that’s tumblr for ya, click the link guys! 

Whelp, this is the end of the first chapter of the second part. I love comments, so, leave one! You know, if you want.

And also, I’ll admit I’ve never read The Metamorphosis, but I’m sure Wheatley’s wrong about this one.

[ecotone99]

[SF] Time Like Waves (first pages of a novel/short story idea I have)

“Time like waves, and the unmistakable feeling of being lost”

A city that never slept was now deserted for the first time in weeks, cars went by, trucks and taxis, but not a soul could be seen on its boulevards. A monstrous storm attacked its streets and made everyone look for shelter wherever they could, everyone except for Saryn. She found joy in the stinging wind against her skin, and the freshness of the water that poured down from the sky. The rain was so dense she could barely see what was in front of her. It was the bright lights of street signs that guided her through the darkened city, which looked as if covered in a thick haze. Thunders roared as she arrived at her apartment building, a quick flash of light illuminated the entrance door and she saw an elderly homeless woman, sheltering herself from the heavy rain. Saryn could only move her aside as she opened the door, since she had no money nor food to spare.

Once inside, the rain could no longer wash away the blood that ran from her nose onto her mouth. Those idiots! she thought, cleaning the blood from her lips*.* Two hours earlier, she had gone to visit one of her suppliers, Caeleb. A hotheaded mess and a sexist asshole, her now-ex-boyfriend used to sell her mechanical equipment, and a few experimental drugs that she used to keep herself awake for more than 48 hours. A quick visit to replenish herself with materials had quickly turned into a heated discussion, since, according to him, Saryn owed them money—which she didn’t. He had had his fun bruising her face after getting upset, and when his arm got tired, he made his hired thugs finish her. And they have taken their time as well.

The only pleasure she could get out of the situation was that she no longer had to deal with that Caeleb and his ass-licking gorillas.

Dripping wet she turned the pale white lights on, walked toward the fridge and grabbed a beer. While drinking, she walked toward the bathroom, and took off her wet clothes, leaving only her underpants on. She washed her face and made sure the blood stopped running. Saryn looked at herself in the mirror, the image of a bruised and tired body imitating every subtle movement she did—her decaying health was so noticeable, that even her brown skin looked pale, accentuating the dark circles under her eyes. Without taking care of her other wounds, she walked toward the living room, or what at least where the living room should be placed. Instead, she had flat cushions and a large coffee table that she used for work. The young woman had all kinds of tools for fixing all kinds of domestic machines. Though, at the moment her priority was something a little less trivial.

After stumbling upon an ancient book called “The Secret Book of Dzyan ,” she found herself obsessed with the occult and mystic. Her new project consisted of a series of ceremonies where she needed to model artifacts in the most delicate fashion. These artifacts will give her the ability to travel beyond any human has traveled before. However, the materials needed to build them were scarce on Earth, and their structure highly difficult to recreate. The book was written on a dead tongue, long forgotten by humans. In order to understand this language, often referred to as “Enoch’s tongue” in Christian books, one needed to be an expert linguist. Nevertheless, she had been studying ancient tongues for a little over a decade now and was able to come up with hints on what the book was about.

She stared at nothing for a few minutes, chugging the cold drink down her throat, which she liked not for its taste but for the cool feeling it gave her. And just when she was about to finish the can, she walked toward a hook on the wall near the entrance door, where she had hanged her windbreaker. She then took a small container from the inside pocket of the jacket, grabbed a pill, and swallowed with the remaining alcohol. This small tablet should give her just enough energy to continue her work without resting for one more day. It was so little time that she used for sleeping, that she only had an old mattress laying on the floor in one corner of the apartment, and she barely used it for sleeping—mostly, it was used for casual sex and as a temporary closet. After grabbing another can of beer, she sat in a flat, over-used cushion in front of the coffee table, and started reading and scribing notes on her journal.

After a few hours working, she turned to her backpack and grabbed a piece of bright metal, a rock no larger than her fist.

— I fucking took the beating of my life for this stupid piece of trash— she talked to herself out loud from habit— I’m sort of lucky that Caeleb has a crush on me still: even when he made those brutes hit me to the ground, he still gave me what I asked for.

“Surely, this will be the last piece of the puzzle that will give me the key to everything…

According to an encyclopedia, this metal had a remarkably low melting point, the perfect material for her to work with the equipment in her apartment. She had everything in her power to achieve this incredible task, however, some of the mathematical equations seemed to be beyond her understanding. Every time she tried to solve them, she found herself lost in a labyrinth full of dead ends. But, in theory, when you encounter several dead ends, eventually, by elimination process you will get to the exit, she thought.

The rising sun marked the end of yet another restless night, and the aching in her eyes, a sign of tiredness. This was the fourth day without rest; she felt so close to achieving her goal that nothing could make her stop working.

A sudden sound coming from her portable communications device attracted her attention, a notification from her personal computer. She ran the server and opened a chat room where she usually communicates with her most trusted contact, “BaTiO3” was his username, and written beside it, a single word in Cyrillic: “Сделано.” Promptly, she looked for a loose piece of paper in one of her journals, where she kept some translated words from English to Russian and vice versa. Done, she read in her mind, it is done.

She came to know “BaTiO3” when she was looking for a component, native of Lakhesis, an industrial planet where the cheapest metals and other materials are mined to be used in the Space Mechanical Engineering Industry. Back then, she knew him only by “12047-27-7,” which she immediately recognized as a Chemical Abstract Service Number—because she used one as well: 107-44-8. But after a year of doing business together, and using the minimum speech possible, they grew comfortable with each other, and talked from time to time. Boris was his real name.

Six months ago, she requested a special metal from him, but it still too soon. She needed more time to solve most of the equations, which, once solved, will bring a single, last equation. An equation Saryn called the “omega equation,” that once graphed in three dimensions, it will show how the metal should be shaped to form an artifact. The artifact will be used in a ceremony that will then create an “omega opening.” A door that will allow her to travel to a different dimension, the home of ancient gods.

She requested from Boris several small pieces of machinery, essential to fix a ship she owned, its damaged engine needed many repairs. The space-craft remained hidden in the outskirts of the city, in an old and long-unused robot farm. The ship was an old model, with parts difficult to get, and its fuel even more so. Being one of the last ships manufactured that used thermonuclear propulsion, its use was not only dangerous but also illegal. Luckily, the people that had it knew nothing about this model, they only thought if the ship as an old and “useless piece of junk” and sold it to her for an excellent price.

Saryn knew it would take about eleven months for the assets to arrive on Earth. This was the average time it took for the slowest ships to travel from Lakhesis to Earth. As little time as it was, she would have to work non-stop.

Another message arrived shortly: “Сложности впереди. Работой осторожней.”

“Trouble ahead. Work cautiously.”

The message meant that Boris had problems falsifying the digital data to transport the assets. And, like a hawk watching over its prey, either governmental or private military agents, or mercenaries will guard the spaceport.

She now needed to make a plan for extraction. She needed the help of others. At least three more people that might have experience in these situations. It was to her advantage that her list of friends was small enough to have at least two trusted contacts here, on Earth. However, she might find herself pushed to ask Caeleb for help in finding the third. She cursed at the thought of talking to him again.

While seeking in between the pages of one of her many journals for the contacts, she felt a rush of pain through her body. It was this moment she most hated when the effect of the energy drugs fades, her body ached and burned like hell, for now, it was time to let it rest. Unable to move the things from her bed, her body heavy as a rock, she was paralyzed in fatigue. And just like lightning, oh shi… she fell hard on the floor. Asleep.

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So as for you to have a general idea of what I want to make here's a small synopsis:

In a futuristic Earth, where deep space travel and colonizing other planets have been around for several decades, where artificial intelligence has already been accepted as a new form of life. The mundane life of Saryn, an addict to energy pills, an engineer and occultist, becomes the starting point of our story, as she seeks to find meaning to her life by finding a way to open interdimensional portals. She befriends self-liberated androids and travels to industrial planets in her quest to contact beings beyond our physical dimension.

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